Battle Creek Elementary Gets a Visit by Professional Illustrator Magdalena Mora
Battle Creek Elementary was honored with a personal visit from local Illustrator Magdalena Mora through a grant awarded to the school by the Lillian Wright & C. Emil Berglund Foundation. Ms. Mora is an illustrator, designer, and art educator based in Minneapolis and Chicago. Her work has been recognized by The New York Times, The American Library Association, and The Chicago Public Library, among others. She has now illustrated seven children’s books with multiple different publishers.
During her visit to Battle Creek, she held two assemblies with students to showcase her work and share her process. She also showed her early writing as an elementary student. She then visited two classrooms, Ms. Nguyen's 2nd-grade classroom, and Ms. Chounlamontry's 4th-grade class. Students had a chance to get a deeper look at what it takes to be an illustrator and artist and even try their own hands out at drawing and working through the creative process.
Since 1999, Saint Paul Public Schools have received funds from the Lillian Wright & C. Emil Berglund Foundation to bring authors into our elementary schools to provide enrichment opportunities and to encourage students to enjoy reading.
Lillian Wright, a long-time Saint Paul Public Schools teacher and principal, who served at both Linwood and Webster (now Obama) elementary schools, endowed the program. She is credited with starting the first elementary school library in Saint Paul at Linwood School in the 1930's. The stated purpose of the endowment is to grant money to elementary schools to allow for a visit by an author or an illustrator of children’s books or poetry. The vision of Ms. Wright was that students in our elementary schools experience a visit from an author at least once during their K-5 years.