Granite Elementary School

I just got back from speaking at Granite Elementary School in Sandy, Utah. My friend and co-worker, Holly's son goes there. Nate is such a cool kid and he reminds me of myself at his age, except he is much taller and a lot smarter.

Anyway, it was so much fun. I spoke to an assembly, then taught a min-writing workshop. The kids and I created a pretty scary story about a 13 year old black girl from Jamaica, named Janessa, who had psychic powers and was being persecuted for it. Her parents, accused murderers and voodoo practitioners, had already been locked up in jail and men in black were coming after Janessa.

First line: "Janessa, run!" her mother screamed, as the police burst into their house to arrest her parents.

Janessa's foster parents try to kill her, as she is obviously evil incarnate, but she jumped out of a three story window and into a snow drift and escaped to school. Luckily, her teacher at her middle school in Sandy, Utah, Mrs. Robinson--a smart and beautiful blonde woman in her twenties, helped her escape. Mrs. Robinson drives Janessa to find her grandmother. On their way to Janessa's grandma's house in West Valley some black SUV's chase them down and drive them off the road and into the Jordan River. Mrs. Robinson apparently drowns, but Janessa gets away.

Finally, Janessa arrives at grandma's house. Janessa hadn't seen her g-ma for many years and the g-ma tries to kill her when she arrives. Devastated and freezing to death, Janessa runs off in the snow. She is captured later by the men in black and wakes up in a cell with Mrs. Robinson-who is alive.

Janessa uses her psychic powers to escape and frees Mrs. Robinson. They escape and run into an elderly black woman--Janessa's real grandmother!--who takes them into her old junker car and drives the three of them away in a snow storm. Where will they go? Mrs. Robinson admits in the last line that she's not just a teacher and the people she works for will help keep Janessa safe.


Pretty darn good, eh? Mrs. Jocelyn Robinson's 5th grade class is pretty impressive.

Here's a link to all the photos:
http://gallery.me.com/paulgenesse#100121&view=grid&bgcolor=black&sel=1

It was a really fun day and I'm hoping to go back to the school again in the future.

Paul Genesse, Author and Editor
Author of The Dragon Hunters
Book Two of the Iron Dragon Series
May of 2009