Best-selling author Sandra Markle is also fondly known as Ms. Whiz by children from the title of the local Atlanta, Georgia, television show she starred on and from the science magic she’s shared with thousands of students during visits to schools worldwide. In the mid-1990s, she even did some of the very first Internet-delivered school visits from remote locations as part of her three trips to Antarctica with the National Science Foundation.
Markle is the author of over 200 nonfiction and fact-based fiction books, including the popular What If You Had!? Series, which now has over two million books in print, The Hush Up Series, The Case of the Vanishing Golden Frogs, which won the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) Subaru SB&F Prize for Excellence in Science Books Award, and A Mother’s Journey, which was a Boston Globe-Horn Book Award Honor Book. In addition to numerous awards for her books, in recognition of her contributions to science and technology, Sandra was honored to receive one of the Women of the Year awards by Women in Technology International.
Virtual Visits
Sandra Markle is available for virtual visit sessions via Zoom or Google Meet. Audio or visual recording of these sessions is available only with permission.
Sandra Markle’s Books Are Real Adventures!
Grades K-6
30 minutes or 45 minutes
$350 per 30-minute visit session
$500 per 45-minute visit session
Sandra Markle shares fun science magic because she was Ms. Whiz on TV in Atlanta, Georgia, and because everyone loves science magic! Markle tells behind-her-book stories, like camping out with 60,000+ Adelie penguins in Antarctica, meeting a 6-month-old baby elephant, and her unusual experience with Rosie the Boa Constrictor. Markle includes Q&A time.
Because she hosts from her home, each Virtual Visit also includes a special extra children love: a trip to Sandra Markle’s Book Closet. This is a large closet packed full of the books she has published: 200+ titles to date, plus some very special souvenirs collected while researching to write.
The 45-minute Virtual Visit includes more science magic, more time to share her behind-her-book stories, her writing and research process, more time for Q&A—well, just more.
Virtual Workshops
Sandra Markle is available for virtual workshops via Zoom or Google Meet. Audio or visual recording of these workshops is available only with permission.
Sandra Markle’s Young Authors’ Guide to Writing
Grades K-6
45 minutes
$600 per 45-minute workshop
Sandra Markle shares her award-winning books and experience as an author while launching children into authoring their own researched, fun-to-write and read books.
Markle first engages young authors in looking at parts of her books to guide them in identifying and creating the all-important three parts of their books: 1. The "grab your readers" beginning, 2. The page-turning moments to lead readers through the middle, and 3. The satisfying-but-wanting-more ending.
As their adventure-in-writing guide, Markle next leads young authors on a safari to choose one or more favorite animals to star in their book. Then she’ll share her successful research tips to learn about an animal’s real-life adaptations for success. And she’ll show how—as in her WHAT IF YOU HAD!? books—young authors can use their imaginations to turn an animal’s real abilities into wildly fun possibilities for their stories. Then Markle will share weaving together real life with imagined events to create a book. She’ll share examples from her own faction stories. Those are ones that tell fictional stories but share real-life facts about the featured animals. Her examples include more of her popular and award-winning books, such as HUSH AND HIBERNATE!, THIRSTY, THIRSTY ELEPHANTS, and FINDING HOME (currently licensed for a possible film adaptation).
As the perfect transition to illustrating their stories, Markle will take young authors to see the Book Closet. Children always love this peek at her 200+ published books, special souvenirs from her research, and a look at a production page from one of her books. Markle has illustrated a number of her own books and always works closely with illustrators and the publisher’s design team to have text and pictures merge perfectly. So, she’ll share tips for the young author-illustrators for having text and pictures work together perfectly.