As previously mentioned, we spent last Friday morning among the students and teachers of White Marsh Elementary School in Trappe, Maryland. We rose early, grabbed a box of books, and drove about an hour south.

We were greeted warmly by the third-grade teacher, who referred to us as the “special, secret guests” and promptly ushered us to the front office.

After we got the projector set up, I went to the bathroom to wash my hands. I was careful to follow the directions posted on the inside of the bathroom door.

We did two assemblies. The first was for the kindergarten through second grade students and the second was for the older kids. At 9:15, the principal gave the daily announcements. A few minutes later, the jury shuffled in. They were incredibly orderly as they sat on the floor in neat rows, the youngest in the front and the older kids in the back. They stared at us with a mixture of curiosity and silent expectation. We could intuit their unspoken message: were these two yahoos really going to say something interesting enough to justify their missing today’s important lessons? Ours was an awesome challenge.

We started by talking a bit about what it is that writers and illustrators do, letting the kids know that, although we got to spend a lot of time writing stories and drawing pictures, it wasn’t fun all the time. To break the ice, we showed them some pictures of us at work, the kids, and the pets.

The kids’ favorite slide was definitely a photo of me at my desk with a deranged look on my face. They laughed for about a minute, at me, not with me. Deranged looks go over really well with the second grade, it seems.

The main event was a reading of St. Michaels, the Town that (Somehow) Fooled the British, which focuses on a town just a short drive from Trappe. We asked the kids if any of them had ever been to St. Michaels. Almost all of them had. We asked them if they knew anything about St. Michaels. They did. They knew that St. Michaels had a lot of boats, which it does, and a lot of shops, which it also does. The book is a satirical (and wildly inaccurate) send-up of an episode during the War of 1812, during which, according to local legend, the townspeople of St. Michaels used wits and wiles to fool the British invaders and save their town. The book is full of anachronisms, and we told the kids to be on the lookout for things that didn’t seem quite right.

Finally, it was time to read. Robbi did the honors. Luckily, a team from TMZ was there and was kind enough to share this shot with us.

When the reading was done, we asked for their thoughts. What about the book wasn’t true, we asked them. Hands shot up almost immediately, and they proved to be keen observers. They noticed, for example, that there were no helicopters in 1812, and no cars, water towers, stoplights, or ocean liners. All of these things are in our book. We were impressed.

Then we asked them if they had any idea why we put all these untrue things in our book. It took a few guesses, but one kid on the far end of the room got it right: “To try to be funny,” he said. He was spot on, the operative word being try.

We went on to explain that you just can’t believe everything you read in book, that history is not always a reliable source, and that it can be fun to make things up when you’re writing stories and drawing pictures.

We ended with a Q&A, wondering if any of the kids would have any questions. As it turns out, they wanted to know all sorts of things. They wanted to know everything. What was our favorite book? How did Robbi become an artist? What was it that made me get that deranged look on my face? Unfortunately, the period ended, and our new friends had to shuffle back to their classrooms to learn how to spell and etc.

The third through fifth graders came next. They were every bit as polite, attentive, and observant as their younger colleagues. We repeated the same drill with similar delighted response to the deranged photo. The highlight of the day was when one of the students, an obviously bright young woman named Rebekha, corrected our telling of the actual history of St. Michaels’ dealings with the British. We mistakenly claimed that the US declared war on Britain, when, in fact, it was the other way around. Rebekha did us the great honor of posing for a picture afterward. (You lawyers among the readership will be disappointed to know that Rebekha’s mom graciously gave us permission to post the photo.)

After the second assembly, we took some time to sign some books.

Robbi did an illustration of the jaunty British captain in each.

We can’t say enough about the teachers and staff at White Marsh. Everyone was so kind and welcoming. We felt like real stars. Eventually, though, the fun had to end. We packed up our books and went home.

Here it that deranged photo, by the way. I had no idea what Robbi was thinking when she put it in, but it seems that she (and the kids) had the last laugh.