Yesterday I had the pleasure of visiting a 3rd grade class at my son's school to talk about adoption from Russia as well as my book, When I Met You. Actually, most of the talk was about When I Met You, as the point of the talk was for me to speak about "the writing process," since that's a big part of the 3rd grade curriculum (and in North Carolina, the BIG writing test is in the 4th grade), but I managed to squeeze in a little discussion about adoption from Russia (since that's the topic of my book). I've found that most kids are much more interested in things like orphanage life and what it's like over in Russia than they are in "the writing process" anyway.

So - they were a very good audience. They attended well, they were polite, and at the end, when I gave them an evaluation form, they diligently filled it out. I wanted constructive criticism but all they said were things like "you were awesome" and "you did a fabulous job!" Very sweet.

In my evaluation form I also asked them what they learned. That was most informative. Here are some of the things they said (please note they didn't say anything about "the writing process" although I assure you, I spent a lot of time on the importance of revision!):

That there are kids who don't have parents in Russia.

I learned that some kids don't have parents so they get adopted by someone else. I liked it when the girl found a home.

That adopting a child means that you get it when its a baby and then they learn and grow up to learn that you are her or his new parents.

That there are children in Russia that don't have families.

That adopting a child helps them a lot because they are very poor.

You should be thankful for what you have.

I like that last one the best. I don't know how that girl does in class but for that comment alone I can see that she's quite a thinker. A+ from me!