You can usually get a discount rate if you book the author with another school on the same day.

We always have an author each year. The PTO usually puts in half and the other is from our book fair. Our librarian usually takes care of everything. They can run up to $1500 they are not cheap. Look into local authors if you can first. You can also try eventslink.com Not sure where you are though if that will help.

Good Luck

Cindy

First, look around for a local author, as it will obviously save money.

We have a great local author who does travel named Matthew Gollub. He wrote The Jazz Fly, an award winning book, among others. He does assemblies in English, Spanish, & Japanese (all in one assembly) and plays drums during the assembly. He kids LOVE him and his books are very fun. He has a website, check it out.

We had a local author come in, he wrote a book about our city and its history and we had him come in and speak to the 3-5 graders for Michigan Week. He actually did not charge us at all and was very glad for the opportunity, said he had wanted to speak to a group of elementary kids for a while, but did not know how to go about it. You should check into local authors in your area, then you know you would save on the travel part at least!

oops forgot...one other thing our libraian does is bring in some type of homemade lunch for the author and library staff, just a nice touch.

Our schoool libarian usually gets an author every year, if it is possible we try paying for the whole thing, in the years that we can't pay the whole thing we donate $500.00. She gets some really good people, the cost is obviuosly more if they have to travel a long ways (out of state). Our county through BOCES actually offers a Arts in Education Showcase each year, school personnel, Pto's can go see samples of performers including storty tellers and authors. By going to this you can see whether it is something that you want to explore, try your libraian first and ask her about this. Good Luck, we do have two performances in the day , one for k-2 and then 3-6, the author will gear their talk to the ages.