It was another exciting day for Reed Intermediate School students on Thursday, December 11, as author Dana Meachen Rau visited their school and spoke to them in two special assemblies.

Rau is a Connecticut-based author who has written over 350 children’s books, covering topics from cooking, butterflies, and money to bones, sneakers, and solar eclipses.

She has also written several books for the popular Who Was? series, a collection of children’s nonfiction books that cover trailblazers, creatives, and innovators throughout history, along with historical events, fictional characters, and real-life phenomenons.

Over 250 Who Was? books have been published since the series launched in early 2002, with Rau writing Who Was Gandhi?, Who Was Marie Antoinette?, and Who Was Harriet Beecher Stowe?, among others.

After a short introduction from two student speakers, the other fifth and sixth grade students at Reed gave Rau a warm welcome.

Rau herself said she was thrilled to visit their school, since she spends most of her time at home writing away at her desk, which can be a little lonely sometimes.

“And so days like today are such a treat for me because I get to be with other writers,” Rau said. “I love meeting with older kids because you all are active writers yourselves ... some of you might write on your own, some of you might just do it in school, but regardless, we have a lot to talk about.”

Her presentation focused on the question “who is an author?” The most obvious answer, Rau said, is someone who writes books and has lots of ideas. One of the questions Rau said she gets asked most is where she gets her ideas. Looking back at everything she has written, Rau said she gets her ideas in two different ways: things she is curious about, and things she loves to do.

Her fascination with all things outer space led her to write about planets, stars, and interstellar travel, while her love of baking led her to write cookbooks.

Among the several hundred fiction and nonfiction books she has written for kids, Rau said most of them are nonfiction. When people think about nonfiction, she said they usually think about history or science topics. However, she noted that nonfiction can be about anything in the real world, from sneakers to building sandcastles.

Lately, Rau has been working on a certain nonfiction genre — biographies. The reason why people write biographies, Rau said, is because they are about regular people who have experienced circumstances that have led them to some sort of “big thing.”

“And this big thing has an effect on the world, and usually changes the world for the better,” Rau said.

She noted that sometimes, ideas for what authors write about come from someone else’s brain, which is the case with the Who Was? series. Rau said the publisher decides what subject they want for a biography, reaches out to an author, and give them assignments.

“And then our job is to write those books,” Rau told the crowd of students. “So that’s what I mean when I say we have a lot in common, because just like when your teacher gives you an assignment, that’s how I work when I write a Who Was? book.”

Timelines

When Rau starts writing, she uses a formula to help break down her writing process. Rau gets a big piece of paper and writes out all the questions she can think of: Who was this person? What did they do? When did they live? Where did they go? Why did they do what they did? How did they do what they did?

From there, Rau said the next step of her process is to extensively research her chosen topic. She goes to the library, checks out every book she can on a subject, and takes rigorous notes. Beyond looking at encyclopedias, websites, or articles online, Rau also takes a field trip if there is a place she can visit to learn more information.

Rau also talked about the importance of organizing events in a timeline. When writing biographies, she said it is really important to put facts in order to create a clear narrative of events. While everyone’s story is different, Rau said many biographies follow the same five parts: childhood, early experiences, important moments, the big thing, and effect on the world.

She then had the audience play a game called “The Biography Game Show,” where students had to organize the events of a figure’s life into the five beats of a standard timeline. Five students held up a different sign, each matching a different part on the timeline, while another student matched a fun fact to the sign.

For this activity, Rau had students briefly learn about Juliette Gordon Low, the American founder of Girl Scouts of the United States of America and subject of one of Rau’s Who Was? books.

Rau later brought back “The Biography Game Show” and had students answer questions as though they were going to be the subject of a Who Was? book. This was to teach students that asking “what” gives them a fact, but asking “why” tells them more about who they are.

“When you ask why ... you get into what it is that drove them to their big thing,” Rau explained. “”You usually get some sort of lesson that we can learn from their lives. What they believe then becomes something that we can apply to our own lives.”

Rau went over a few more of the biographies she has written, going over the themes in each of those books. She showed a drawing of herself that a second grader made many years ago. Rau then applied the five part timeline to her own life.

“I don’t know what [the big thing] is for me yet, and I’m not sure what my effect on the world is ... but I can still think about my why,” Rau said. “And so I’ve decided that this is my theme ... that writing helps us learn more about ourselves, about the world, and about the world around us.”

She asked students one last time “who is an author” before saying “an author is you.”

“You are the authors of your own stories. And I know you’re still a child in that part of your timeline ... even though the future is way ahead of you, you can still start thinking about what your big thing is going to be and how you can change the world for the better,” Rau said.

Reporter Jenna Visca can be reached at jenna@thebee.com.