He started by telling us about his first dream, making movies with his brother. Unfortunately (or perhaps fortunately for us) he was not able to make a living making movies. So, he took a job with a textbook company and wrote those boring textbooks for social studies that we used to use! He said that as he did his research for this job, he would come across these cool little historical stories that the textbook company wouldn't let him use. Because he always loved action/adventure, he decided that writing textbooks was not for him. So, he quit to write the stories that he wanted to tell. Stories about spies and superbombs and high tech planes and hollow coins with codes or poison hidden inside. No wonder he quit!
He told us about the process involved in writing such detailed non-fiction stories. It takes him about 3 years to write just one book. The first year is usually all research. He shared that while he does some research online, most of his research is using books that he finds in libraries and using the sources notes from those books to lead him to even more information. In non-pandemic times, he would travel often to archives and other places to track down sources that are not digitized. He then begins to organize his book by writing down events on colored index cards and using a white board to make a storyboard as he writes. He even shared his little Lego avatar that he moves around his storyboard, so he can keep track of where he is in the story.
We were so excited to host Mr. Sheinkin, and I know the students learned so much from him! I definitely did. Thank you Little Shop of Stories, for sending us 3 amazing authors this week. We had a blast!