Author gives life lessons: Pallotta pays a visit to BG schools

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When Jerry Pallotta spots an object, no matter how mundane it is, he thinks of how he can write a book about it.

See a plane, write a book about it. See moths and beetles, write books about them.

“You get book ideas from all kinds of crazy places,” Pallotta told students at Conneaut Elementary Tuesday.

Pallotta is visiting Bowling Green schools today and Tuesday as part of 1BookBG.

His “Who Would Win?” series was selected as this year’s book that was shared with all students K-5 in the city’s public, private and parochial schools.

Jerry Pallotta’s “Who Would Win” books on display at Conneaut Elementary.

A writer for more than 30 years, Pallotta is an award-winning author of children’s alphabet books and imaginative fiction and has written over 90 books. He combines facts, research, humor and realistic illustrations of the animals he writes about.

He engaged the students in grades 2-5 at Conneaut during his hour-long presentation.

Pallotta has 70 first cousins, so he wrote about each of them. He showed a photo of his son, who is an Army Ranger.

He asked for students’ opinions on the cover of his books, and he showed the photos of where he grew up in Scituate, Massachusetts. He kept lobster traps and harvested seaweed.

There is seaweed in the school’s chocolate milk, he said, much to the disbelief of his audience.

“It makes the cocoa stick to the milk,” he said. “It’s also in ice cream, it’s also in strawberry milk.”

Author Jerry Pallotta talked to Conneaut Elementary students Monday.

His first book was “The Ocean Alphabet Book,” which led to alphabet books on dinosaurs, frogs, butterflies, flowers and vegetables.

“The Icky Bug Alphabet Book” is his bestseller, selling more than 1 million copies. He said he got paid 18 cents per copy and challenged the audience to do the math.

He showed photos of the sea creatures he has come across, including a great white shark; his photos included the jaw after it was cut off and he has a photo of what was in its stomach.

“I’ll probably show it to the principal and if she wants to show it to you, she can,” Pallotta said.

He had the audience laughing at the photos of the “banana” lobster, a sausage tree and elephant seals.

It wasn’t until 2011 that he published the first “Who Would Win” book. The Komodo dragon vs. king cobra was soon followed by hammerhead vs. bull shark and wolverine vs. Tasmanian devil.

“I don’t know who might win,” Pallotta said, but has been told it’s always the bigger of the two.

For polar bear vs. grizzly bear, he said he searched for two years for documentation on the two bears fighting but came up empty handed.

He said he had never seen a book about crabs before, so he wrote a crab alphabet book.

His “Ultimate Small Shark Rumble,” is about small sharks that won’t eat the students but that they can eat. Pallotta showed photos of cookie cutter sharks, dogfish sharks, angel sharks, bonnethead sharks and nurse sharks.

He ended the presentation by calling up two students to stand in front of the screen. He had them do the motion of swimming while he showed shark photos behind them.

His audience loved it.

Grant Rywalski said he liked the presentation a lot.

“I like the pictures that he showed,” the third grader said.

Rywalski rattled off all Pallotta’s books that he’s read and said python vs alligator was his favorite.

“Pythons are my favorite snake. I wrote a story about pythons,” he said.

“I think that he’s very interesting and very creative,” said Rylie Yglesias, who is in fifth grade.

She said it is cool to see how Pallotta thinks and how he makes a book out of what he sees.

“I really like that he shows the process of how he writes and edits and how he looks for interesting interactive words,” Principal Alyssa Karaffa said about Pallotta’s presentation.

“They’re definitely involved, paying attention. They’re laughing and having a great time,” she said about the students.

Maria Simon, youth services coordinator at the Wood County District Public Library, said Pallotta’s visit was made possible through the support of the Marjorie Conrad estate.

He spoke to a packed atrium Sunday at the library, she said.

“He really explains where writers get their ideas,” Simon said.

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