Jasmine Warga Author Visit

Our third, fourth, fifth, and sixth grade students welcomed Newbery Honor winning author Jasmine Warga to UNIS Hanoi this week. She is the author of several middle grade novels, including Other Words for Home, A Rover’s Story, The Shape of Thunder, and A Strange Thing Happened in Cherry Hall. She also has two Young Adult novels, Here We are Now and My Heart and Other Black Holes.

In her grade level sessions, Jasmine shares about her journey to becoming an author and the influences behind her stories. Writing across a variety of genres, including realistic fiction, mystery, and science fiction, she shared that it is curiosity that ignites her writing. When she is interested in a topic, she will think about how to turn it into a story. She also shared her upcoming books, including The Unlikely Tale of Chase and Finnegan, as well as her upcoming installment in The Last Resort series, The Claiming. Students were able to discuss and share where their story ideas come from and ask her questions about her life and her books.

Jasmine also did classroom sessions with third to fifth graders. With third grade, she demonstrated different craft moves she uses in her writing, and she gave students prompts to help them try these out in short writing pieces as well. In fourth grade, she shared about writing in verse, and students were encouraged to write their own poems. Fifth graders learned about how to use their passions and interests in diverse topics to spark writing, and ways to think about perspective and point of view when telling stories.

Students were motivated to write after her sessions, and we look forward to seeing the stories Jasmine’s visit inspired them to create.