Fostering a love of reading in Alexandria students, one author visit at a time

If you’ve ever witnessed a group of wide-eyed students hanging on an author’s every word during a school assembly, clutching their newly signed books as if they’re treasures, you’ve glimpsed the magic Kathryn Howell Dalton helps create. As Old Town Books’ Community and Schools Liaison, Kathryn is the bridge between authors, publishers, teachers, and young readers all across Alexandria.

From coordinating multi-school author tours to organizing our quarterly Educator Nights, Kathryn manages all the behind-the-scenes maneuvering it takes to connect kids in schools to their favorite authors. Her days are filled with order forms and email chains, along with a trusty wagon that’s often full of books on their way to local schools.

We sat down to talk about all things schools and community building. Read on for affirming anecdotes about the magic of author school visits, and find details about how you can get involved.

- Ally

Ally: Kathryn, thank you for being on the blog today to talk about all things schools! Let’s start by giving our readers a look at what your day-to-day role at Old Town Books entails?

Kathryn: In addition to bookselling and helping to match young customers with new reads they’re excited about, my principal job involves getting to know local teachers and librarians and then working with publishers to bring touring authors to their schools. As part of that, I plan quarterly Educator Nights, coordinate with publicists, do a lot of scheduling, help with flyers and order forms, wrangle ordering pages for our website, gather Sharpies and Post-Its, and sell a TON of books all at once. Thank goodness for the trusty store wagon that has helped me haul more than 1,000 books around to schools this fall.

Ally: We need to name that wagon… it has its own lore at this point. Maybe that’s the name, Lore the Wagon? Speaking of schools, I’m curious if you can share what the average school visit day is like?

Kathryn: School visit days are thrilling and exhausting! I meet the author at the school, bring in the books, and work with the librarian to prepare the author to sign and personalize each copy. I begin the assembly by telling everyone about our bookstore, because I want them to know us as a resource and a part of their community, and then I introduce the author. In order to prepare, I always read the book that is part of our visit, and I often read multiple other books the author has written. Recently, for example, this led me to read more of Ruta Sepetys’ work, which is a historical fiction reader’s dream. I take pictures during the assemblies and lots of notes on what’s going well, including tips I can use for the next visit. Sometimes I help facilitate the question and answer part of the program.

Ally: What’s something about your work that educators and librarians might be surprised to learn?

Kathryn: If an author is on a book tour, their usual speaking fee is waived, which makes the visit accessible to a broader range of schools, but it’s still contingent on the schools helping to sell as many copies of the new book as possible. Also, we have no control over when an author visits! If we’re fortunate enough to have a publisher contact us after we have pitched for an author tour, we’re given a date, and then we have to find schools who can manage that date and work to sell books. The author is putting a tremendous amount of work into the tour, as are we, so the sales need to be strong enough to support the business side of things. We juggle school schedules with transit times to plan the author’s whole day, so communication and relationships are important. When I know an individual at a school and they respond quickly to an opportunity, when a principal offers to be flexible about welcoming us in the afternoon instead of the morning, or when teachers try to squeeze in another grade level to an assembly so more children can meet an author, it makes the partnership really work.

Ally: How do you balance coordinating with schools and engaging with the wider community?

Kathryn: When I focus on children, I often find that I am already focused on the wider community. We hear a lot of people – not just parents – commenting on a decline in children’s reading, especially reading whole books. Our entire community has to support children’s access to books in order to address this problem.

With the opening of Old Town Books Junior last year (happy first birthday to us!), we began focusing our efforts on school visits and partnerships to provide books to children in schools. Bringing an author to a school often leads to a parent purchasing a book for their child. Through that, the child and the parent hear about our bookstore and maybe they stop by one weekend, attend one of our kids book clubs, or come to an author event in the store. This child is now part of a community of readers!

We’re also committed to extending author opportunities to school communities who might not be able to afford large book purchases. Recently, we partnered with InspireLit, Convene Architecture, Alexandria City Public Schools, and the Cora Kelly PTA to bring Chris Van Dusen to Cora Kelly Elementary and give a copy of his new book, If I Built a Town, to every student in the Kindergarten, 1st, and 2nd grades. It took a handful of enthusiastic adults to make this happen, and we intend to create these partnerships again and again!

Many longtime Alexandrians are familiar with the work of the Campagna Center. We partner multiple times per year with Campagna to support their Wright to Read program, which recruits, trains, and supports volunteer tutor-mentors in Alexandria City Public Schools. We are already planning our holiday book drive to support both InspireLit and Wright to Read this year!

Ally: We sure do put a lot on your plate, we’re so lucky to have you running all this, Kathryn. It takes a special person to excel at bookselling, relationship building, offsite sales, etc. etc! Thank you.

What would you say is your favorite part of being our community and schools liaison?

Kathryn: Hands down, it’s children meeting authors, though authors meeting children is a close second! It is such a privilege to be the person who helps a school prepare and engage their students for an author visit and then to see the faces light up as an actual author shares their process, their work, and often a few photos of their pets!

Overhearing a student who has gathered their courage to approach an author after a presentation and tells them, “You are why I love to read,” as a St Stephen’s & St Agnes Middle School student did with Steve Sheinkin recently, reminds me of the E.M. Forster quote from Howard’s End, “Only connect.” What an achievement to create something that touches another heart, and what a gift that brave young man gave in validating an author’s work!

Ally: I love that anecdote. Would you say that’s a big part of what makes a school author visit truly successful?

Kathryn: Yes. We’re back to connection! I don’t need to tell any teacher this, but an engaged student is a better participant. I believe children are the toughest audience, whether that’s as readers or attendees, because they demand an authentic experience.

“You want me to sit and listen to a random adult for an hour? No, thanks!” versus “You’re telling me James Ponti – THE James Ponti, author of City Spies and Framed – is coming to MY SCHOOL?!”

With that attitude, the latest book in the Sherlock Society series, Hurricane Heist, won’t be the last James Ponti book those students want to read!

If students don’t already know an author, we ask that schools introduce them in advance. There are a multitude of options: read a previous book to your class, read an excerpt from the forthcoming book, watch a video of the author reading some of their work, check out the author’s website as a class. Some art teachers work with students to create a bulletin board or sign to welcome the author. At our recent visit with Chris Van Dusen at Cora Kelly, the students not only read the first three books in the “If I Built” series, but they lined the hallways with their original creations of cars, houses, and schools!

Ally: So cool! Can you share a favorite memory from a past school event?

Kathryn: Karina Yan Glaser’s book The Nine Moons of Han Yu and Luli will probably be my favorite children’s book I read in 2025. I love historical fiction because characters anchor history for me, and Karina’s writing is vivid as well as tender. I was elated to take Karina on school visits last month, and to find that the librarian at Washington Yu Ying Public Charter School in DC not only prepared every class to meet her, but also offered a book club for students to read one of Karina’s previous books together before the visit. After our assembly, the book club members got to meet Karina in the library, have their picture taken with her, and have their book club books signed! Karina has a stamp that she pairs with each book, and in that small group, the students were able to see that process up close. When I let Karina know that one student said to me, “She has NO idea that I’ve read every one of her books and LOVED them,” she was delighted to give him a custom postcard with an illustration featuring the spines of all her books. Talk about a fan for life!

Ally: That’s so special. On that note, what more can you say about what students get out of meeting an author in person that they might not get from just reading the book?

Kathryn: When Derrick Barnes’s publisher reached out to us this fall, Melissa and I immediately thought of James K. Polk Elementary. A customer who is a Polk parent had told us how eager the school was to have an author visit, which helped to get the school on our radar. I knew of Derrick’s award-winning book, The King of Kindergarten, and his companion book, The Queen of Kindergarten, and it turned out that all Polk students read those books with their school librarian as kindergarteners! Derrick is determined to erase stereotypes and increase representation of Black children in literature. His writing is vivid, emphatic, and affirming. When students meet Derrick, he talks about his process, his frustrations and successes with work, and his family. Meeting the living, breathing person who writes something that resonates with you is powerful! Derrick’s new book, The Incredibly Human Henson Blayze, is for children ten and up. The assembly at Polk was just for fifth graders and they were rapt. During the Q&A they had questions about Derrick’s children (four boys!), his favorite foods, and his favorite football team in addition to his writing. Understanding authors as real people makes writing a real and more achievable process and helps children to see themselves as writers as well as readers.

Ally: This all sounds so magical - and like something lots of schools must want to bring to their own students! What’s one piece of advice you’d give to schools when planning their first author visit?

Kathryn: Help us help you! We are ready to answer questions and offer suggestions, so let us know what you need. It’s all about communication and planning, and we are partners in both through the entire process. Also: I still have not found a working crystal ball, so I don’t know you’re longing for author visits unless you tell me! Sign up for our Educators Newsletter and attend our Educator Nights so that we’re connected in advance!

Ally: What are some of your hopes for how Old Town Books can deepen its work with schools in the future?

Kathryn: I work regularly with teachers and librarians who purchase classroom sets (20 or more of a single book) or large quantities (20 or more of a variety of books) for schools and classrooms. We’re able to offer schools a discount at those quantities, and we also get to know your inventory and make suggestions just for you! It’s exciting to work with and equip professionals who want to give students the best. Imagine a group project, but with teachers and librarians!

I’m also looking forward to more partnerships. As booksellers, we know the cost of books adds up, and partnering with local businesses can help offset that cost. I hope to have the chance to work with more businesses, organizations, and book lovers of all stripes. Alexandria is definitely a city of readers and I can’t think of better branding than supporting the youngest residents of our city as they grow into informed, engaged citizens.

Ally: Yes! I couldn’t agree more. Let’s bring more books to more kids.

Thank you so much, Kathryn, for your time and for being here on the blog. In conclusion, I have to know what got you started as a reader?

Kathryn: So many people have contributed to my love of books! My parents are both big readers and made sure we had everything from novels to non-fiction reference books all over the house. Jennie Dishman, my elementary school librarian, put me in the Great Books club and let me repeatedly check out Thumbelina, which I hauled up the little stairs to read atop the treehouse in our school library. I still read a broad variety!

Ally: And because I’m nosy/always looking for my next read: What are you reading this fall?

Kathryn: I read several things at once and love reading seasonally. My youngest is obsessed with bats, so she and I are reading a massive adult non-fiction book called The Genius of Bats right now. I’m finishing up How to Kill a Witch, which is a riotous, informative, and energizing look at the history of witch trials in Scotland that draws parallels to current events. I’m thrilled the book made it on our gift guide and that the authors are coming to Alexandria, so we’ll have signed copies! I can’t wait to start Katherine Applegate’s Pocket Bear this week and Scott Reintgen’s Rise of Neptune if I can pry my son’s copy away from him. Currently a witchy, cozy mix!

Ally: Ok last question for real! If an educator or administrator wants to get in touch with you to talk schools and author visits, what’s the best way to reach out?

Kathryn: My email is community@oldtownbooks.com. Also don’t forget to come out to one of our Educator Night events, sign up for our Educator Newsletter, and follow us across social media to stay in the loop!

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