Newbery Medal Winner Kwame Alexander Visits Sewickley Academy

Kwame is a poet, educator, and The New York Times bestselling author of 21 books, including “The Crossover,” which received the 2015 John Newbery Medal for the Most Distinguished Contribution to American literature for Children, along with numerous other awards.

His visit was one of Pittsburgh Arts and Lectures “Author to Schools” events (a video conference event) – an hour long Q&A round robin, moderated by the Pittsburgh Arts and Lectures' Executive Director Stephanie Flom.

Sewickley Academy hosted the event, while six other area schools with the range of students in third – eighth grades – West Jefferson Hills - Jefferson Elementary, St. Edmunds Academy, North Hills Middle, Hampton Twp. - Central Elementary, Woodland Hills Intermediate School, and Shadyside Academy – participated via video conference, and additional schools were able to log on to “view only.” Kwame took questions from students at each of the six schools about his writing career, briefly discussed a number of his books including the Newbery Medal Winner “The Crossover,” his newest, “Booked,” which was recently included on the National Book Awards Longlist, and others.

Immediately following the Q&A session, Kwame trekked over to the Early Childhood building to spend time with students in Pre-Kindergarten through Grade 2. He taught students how to count to 10 in Swahili through movement and song, and read his book “Surf’s Up,” along with help from the students repeating certain lines from the story.

Kwame believes that poetry can change the world and he uses it to inspire and empower young people through his Page-to-Stage Writing and Publishing Program released by Scholastic. A regular speaker at schools and conferences in the United States, he also travels the world planting seeds of literary love: Singapore, Brazil, Italy, France, and Shanghai. Recently, Kwame led a delegation of 20 writers and activists to Ghana, where they delivered books, built a library, and provided literacy professional development to 300 teachers as a part of Literacy Empowerment Action Project (LEAP) for Ghana, an International literacy program he co-founded. In 2015, Kwame served as Bank Street College of Education’s inaugural Dorothy M. Carter writer-in-residence. The Kwame Alexander Papers, a collection of his writings, correspondence, and other professional and personal documents, is held at The George Washington University’s Gelman Library.