The St. Patrick’s Day Luck of the Irish allowed me to spend time with author, Clint Smith, today. As I sit to write about his visit to my middle school this morning and then his afternoon visit to a neighboring ES in the afternoon (yep, I followed him over to hear him some more. #ClintSmithGroupie), I am thinking how I just spent time with a a super smart person who loves his job. He admitted, he loves to learn. So often, he used the phrase “I wanted to learn more, so I…” His gratitutde for having a job that pays him to read, research, travel and write shines through. And having such a smart brain, he so eloquently spoke to both a middle school audience and an elementary audience about big, tough issues, explaining topics like slavery and racism in terms all understood. He shared that the topics he chooses to write about are not ones he is already an expert on. He becomes the expert by writIng. Maybe that is why I easily learned from him today. He knows what it feels like to not know and then he learns it and then teach it to another, step by step. Today, he shared his expertise on slavery in America which he became by writing How the Word is Passed and the YA edition of How the Word is Passed.

6th, 7th and 8th graders filed into our 400 seat auditorium as Period 3 began. Filling the first six rows sat the students who chose to read and discuss Clint’s book ahead of time. They met over lunch for book club discussions and helped make the welcome posters displayed across the stage. Our 7th grade Civic’s teacher welcomed us and introduced our visiting author. After sharing the highlights of his bio, she asked us to all stand and welcome him! How fitting that he got a standing ovation right away! Yep, authors are rock stars!

For the next hour, this author mesmerized the audience. He did the same with the 5th graders at the ES. Dressed in a casual outfit, his big smile made us all feel like we were his friend. His easy manner, holding the microphone and speaking from the heart, had us all listening. He simply shared his story of how he came to write this book. It started in 2017, a time when he saw confederate statues coming down and he admitted that he did not know much about slavery and its impact in American. He wasn’t taught much about this topic when he went to school.

His first trip to learn more was to Monticello. He asked the students, “What do you know about Thomas Jefferson?” The ES audience said his face is on the nickle, he wrote the Declaration of Independence and a school nearby is named after him. Clint pointed out that these are all true facts. He is one of our founding fathers, our third president and he did lots of good things for our country. However, he also owned slaves. Not one or two but 600. He also fathered four black children with a slave named Sally Hemmings. And he kept these four, his own children, as slaves. This is not a good fact.

Clint continued, Just like Jefferson, America has some good things and some bad things. It is a place with great opportunities AND a place where people were harmed. He explained further. He sometimes does things he is proud of and sometimes he makes mistakes. However, when he messes up, he tries to fix it. He tries to learn from his mistakes so he can do better. He lives this way, as a human, trying to do good but sometimes needing to fix mistakes he makes. And he wants the same expectations for his country. He wants his country to tell the truth. Not pretend the bad stuff didn’t happen. Acknowledge it and do better next time. When he explained it this way, that we can speak of our county’s leaders by explaining both the good and the bad, it felt freeing and smart. It helped give me the language I need in 2026 America, a time when leaders are telling me to not mention certain truths because it might make another feel bad.

I could go on and on. However, I find it hard to capture all that was said today by my new favorite author. He ended our MS discussion by encouraging us all to read his book. He also said we can go on YouTube and watch his Crash Course on Black History, 51 episodes. And soon, we can read his next nonfiction book, Just Beneath the Soil, He wrote it to know more about World War II. It comes out next year. And he mentioned a 3rd poetry book may follow after that. (My fingers are crossed).

As he left the ES, he thanked us. With a genuine smile, he said, “I hope to see you again. Maybe when my next book comes out!” I thought to myself, “Definitely!”