Before I begin working on a new book with the school kids, I like to introduce myself with a slideshow about my trip around the world on a bicycle. I also bring lots of extras, like: a set of free books, bookmarks, reader-teacher guides, my bicycle, and more. In this case, I pitched my tent in the library for the kids to explore; and I also set up my stove (without the fuel), cookware and water filter.
Just getting started with bike touring? Wondering what bike and gear to buy? Find out in Bike Touring Basics with this free 66-page eBook from my friends at Travellingtwo.com. I read this and thought it was a great how-to bicycle tour introduction, with fantastic pictures. In fact, I can’t believe they are giving it away for free! I even have the honor of being quoted. Of course, if you’d rather relive the adventure from the comfort of your armchair, I recommend Falling Uphill, a coming-of-age story, which happens to take place on a bicycle.
U.S. Embassy Deputy Chief of Mission Jefferson Brown and Press Officer Shannon B. Farrell met with the Governor of Chaco Jorge Capitanich at the provincial Government House in the city of Resistencia to talk about local public policies and explore future opportunities of cooperation between the province of Chaco and the United States.
Mr. Brown presented the governor with gift copies of the book “Cayendo Hacia Arriba” by Scott Stoll, illustrated by primary school students from the provinces of Chaco, Corrientes and Buenos Aires. (More.)
Here is one of my most popular articles. It appeared in various forms in almost all countries from Argentina all the way up to Canada and about a 1000 people “liked” it.
Update: Here is the follow up story on Infobae.com after the publication of the new book illustrated by the local Argentina schools, “Cayendo Hacia Arriba”. Pictured below is Ambassdor Martinez, Press Attaché Shannon Farrell (the woman who made it all happen), Director Javier Canepa and the professors and staff of Escuela Pública Nro. 3 “Arturo Marasso”, Escuela Nº 26 “Dardo Rocha” and Escuela Nº 13 “Armada Argentina”.
I’m very excited. This Thursday the Ambassador to Argentina will be visiting some elementary schools in Buenos Aires to read the new Spanish edition of my children’s book. The kids will be receiving their own copy of the book and the certificate of recognition pictured above. We added another 18 illustrations to the certificate to honor even more students. What a great honor for me to have 2000 books given away to the kids, some whom are so poor that they have never owned a book.
Update: Here is Ambassador Martinez presenting a certificate to Director Javier Canepa of Escuela Pública Nro. 3 “Arturo Marasso”.
Here is my new book on the floor of the print shop waiting to be bound. It’s the Spanish edition of the kids book. “Cayendo Hacia Arriba.” I needed to hover over the guys at the shop, because it just wasn’t getting done on schedule. Grr!
Would you believe they printed enough for 250 extra books just in case there is a mistake in binding?
The Making of “Cayendo Hacia Arriba: El Secreto De La Vida”
I had the time of my life in Argentina as the Cultural Ambassador with the US Department of State. We worked with 12 schools to create the Spanish edition of “Falling Uphill: The Secret of Life”. I visited some underprivileged schools, an orphanage for HIV+ children, bicycled through Buenos Aires in their city “bicicleteada”, and much more. Rather than write 10,000 words to describe this honor, perhaps it is easier to just watch the movies of my trip below.
The first video is about my trip the Chaco and Corrientes, back where I got stuck in the mud so long ago. The second video is about the making of the book at a school for deaf children. The third video was one of my favorite days at an extremely poor community know as “Fort Apache”. The fourth video is about the “bicicleteada”. And the last video is a TV interview partially in English.
Scott’s Fall News Cultural Ambassador to Argentina
By the time most of you receive this news, I’ll be on the plane to Argentina. I have one of my biggest opportunities ever—while traveling during a time of war I always thought of myself as the bicycling ambassador, and now I’ve been honored by the US Embassy in Argentina as the Cultural Ambassador for the 2011-2012 school year.
I’ll be working with the embassy’s Outreach Program and Argentine school children to produce the Spanish edition of my children’s book, Falling Uphill: The Secret of Life, which is especially exciting since Buenos Aires has been chosen as the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization’s (UNESCO) 2011 World Book Capital. See Argentina’s celebratory sculpture The Tower of Babel. I think/hope my book is in there somewhere.
I’m told every place that I will be visiting is very special. I’ll be traveling to at-risk neighborhoods where kids are extremely poor, as well as a foster home for HIV positive orphans (pictured above is one of many orphanages I saw in Africa), a school for deaf kids, and the two poorest provinces in Argentina. The embassy will be donating 2000-4000 books to children who have never ever owned a book.
It is truly an honor, and I’m very hopeful to inspire so many young adventurers of life with my hard-earned wisdom and a few good laughs. And I’m excited to see the new cultural perspective they bring to the illustrations of "Cayendo Hacia Arriba".
I also get to meet the Buenos Aires city government to talk about bicycling as a way of life and their "Mejor en bici" project (of course bicycles are the cure to all the evil in the world) and participate in their "bicicleteada" this weekend. So, thanks to Argentina itself. As my friend, who coincidentally just left for an embassy posting in Finland, said: this is a rare opportunity because not all countries would welcome a Cultural Ambassador.
Follow The Adventure Classroom video phone calls
I plan to make as many updates as possible on my website. Also, teachers please contact me to arrange a Skype video phone call from Buenos Aires, Argentina.
The ice cream social celebration for “Ruby the Red Worm” drew over a 1000 people and was one of the most overwhelming and fulfilling moments of my life, including seeing the students so proud to sign their illustrations in everyone’s book.
Pictured here is an event that I feel was of the utmost importance — the student illustrator book signing and ice cream social to celebrate the publication of the book. About 1000 staff, friends and family arrived to have their books signed by the student illustrators. Here you only see one corner of the gymnasium. I was delighted to see the young students so proud of their accomplishment. It was one of the most amazing and fulfilling moments of my life to see the dreams of so many students coming to life.
Thanks to the Waukesha STEM Academy for going way beyond the call of duty to organize this event, which is no easy job. They also included free ice cream for all the kids. An idea for future fundraisers would be to include cupcakes for sale for books like the upcoming “Cupcake Boy”.
The new book is finally here! Perhaps no one is more surprised how beautiful it is then me, especially the cover! I puzzled for months about what to do, including a meeting with the art teacher discussing if her best students would want to illustrate and/or color the cover, and whether to have the school vote on a winner. Those ideas were good; however, they weren’t feasible. So after one-too-many sleepless nights, I arose in the wee hours and in one inspired flurry, drew this picture. It’s quite different than anything else I’ve done, and so I like to think I’ve learned to listen to my muses. I also splurged several hundred dollars that I don’t have on a drawing tablet for my computer, which I used to color my pen and ink drawing.
I’m very surprised this picture turned out so great! Another one of my personal favorites. And a giant framed photo will soon be hanging in the school office until the end of times.
It was very difficult to illustrate the chalk drawing and make it straight while accounting for perspective. It took me about 3 hours, and I was flying around the playground backwards so much I think it gave me bronchitis.
Below you can see a picture of the chalk outline from the point of view of the playground. It appears incomprehensible. And the next aerial view shows Mrs. Krzysik surveying the chalk drawing “We ❤ worms” and preparing to organize the students by grade and the color of their T-shirts. Due to the nature of kids, we had a limited amount of time to form the picture and capture a lot of smiling faces. Of course, when you want clouds, you get sun. And, I miscalculated the morning shadows since the sun was still in the southern hemisphere rather than due east, which created too much contrast and long shadows. We solved some of these problems by having the kids sit down. In the previous photo they were all standing.
Today I will be taking a school class photograph of the students in staff standing in this shape. It is an overambitious project, with a lot of variables.
Above is my diagram of the school playground with the school at the bottom of the photograph. And below is my location scout made from the roof of the school. Notice that it took about 5 seconds for kids to scream: “Scott Stoll is on the roof.” I think they’re a lot like prairie dogs.
I’ve been observing the weather, waiting for the snow to melt, hoping for a cloudy day to avoid the high contrast and shadows, and also hoping to schedule a time when the playground will be in the shadow. Among my challenges, will be:
Drawing a giant picture in chalk
Calculating the correct perspective and space for the students to comfortably fill the lines
Organizing the students into groups of red and blue shirts. Fortunately the teachers are great at this.
Accounting for all the unforeseen variables
And accomplishing this all before everyone goes stir crazy and breaks formation.
I seem to learn all these things the hard way. If life was easy, it wouldn’t be new.
While I was producing the final book, the students continued exploring some related projects. Pictured here is Mrs. Lambert’s class examining some red worms up close; and in the background, hanging from the ceiling, are tiers of homemade composting bins made from 2-liter bottles hanging from the ceiling. The top tiers are homes to some happy plants. The worms made good models for the art class, and a lot of dirty hands. Also, pictured is one of Mrs. Hyland’s music students composing a theme song for Ruby the Red Worm. Some students would sing their songs while illustrating.
After sorting through my foot-tall stack of drawings, I begin selecting and editing my favorites. The first pictures shows the original scan. You can see the line from the story on the top of the page and the students marker illustration of that concept, which shows a field of flowers toasting Ruby the Red Worm with a cup of tea.
The second drawing is a closeup depicting how I must delete the words from the illustration. I’ve also spent dozens of hours erasing pencil lines!
In the third drawing, I zoom in even closer to delete the “y” and a comma. Some drawings require an hour of retouching, particularly if I combine two or three illustrations. In this case, I removed the words and added additional cups of tea in all the flower’s hands.
And the last drawing shows the finished product. Only 100 more to go!
After working with the elementary students for 6 days, I got approximately 1000 drawings to choose from. So, being more of the right-brained-artistic type, it is a major organizational challenge — I’ve never used so many folders, stickies, paper clips, dividers and color markers.
Here you see that I have laid the book out on the floor with my tentative favorites in place. Also pictured are dozens of folders. First I organize the pictures alphabetically by grade and teacher, since some kids will draw 10 pictures. As I progress, choosing pictures becomes harder, and I need to be more creative, such as combining two student drawings into one. I will also reorganize the piles by page number or subject matter. And constantly I am subdividing the pictures into favorites, seconds (maybes), thirds (probably-nots), miscellaneous, unknown and more….
It seems every time I look, I see the pictures in a new way, and am impressed by the creativity and humor of the young students.
Update: Ms. Nagan, the art teacher, gathered some of her best illustrators for the STEM school’s application hour, to help me fill the missing pages. The book is looking fantastic thanks to the students overwhelming enthusiasm — and I mean overwhelming.
I also scouted the rooftop for the class photo. It took less than 5 seconds for the kids to scream: “Scott Stoll is on the roof.” I think elementary students are a lot like prairie dogs.
World Bicycle Tour
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