Authors and Illustrators, an event hosted by the Assistance League of Glendale, was held virtually on Tuesday at Cerritos Elementary School in Glendale via Zoom.

Three authors presented their works: Caroline Arnold spoke with students in TK through second grade; Alexis O’Neill presented to the third and fourth graders, and Leslie Margolis talked with the fifth and sixth graders. Each author made their presentation four times enabling each class size to be kept small and providing all 452 students at Cerritos the benefit of the presentations.

Arnold is an author and an illustrator of over 160 nonfiction books for children that focus on her love of nature. As a child growing up in Minnesota this love of nature was fostered by going bird watching with her father and attending rural summer camps each year where she learned about natural science subjects such as plant and animal habitats and ecosystems that she uses in her books.

In college she majored in art and literature and began writing books when her two children were young. Arnold is known for a unique cut paper technique that she uses to illustrate her books.

She lives in the Los Angeles area and enjoys sharing her knowledge and love of nature and books with children.

O’Neill grew up in Wakefield, Massachusetts in a family that loved to sing and tell stories. She began making up and telling stories to family and friends even before she went to school. She didn’t know then that people could earn a living as writer. Today she is the author of fiction and nonfiction books and magazine articles for children.

Using material based on her own experiences with family and friends O’Neill is the author of a seafaring picture book, “Loud Emily,” a rollicking book about bullies, “The Recess Queen” and a book about unselfish giving, “Estella’s Swap.”

When asked if she enjoys writing books for kids, she responded emphatically, “I love doing what I do!”

Margolis grew up in Los Angeles and aspired to be an author at a young age. She has written more than 50 books for young readers and has won many state and readers’ choice awards.

She is well known for two of her popular series books: The Maggie Brooklyn Mysteries and The Annabelle Unleashed series. In fact, one of her books, “Boys Are Dogs,” was made into a movie for the Disney Channel starring Zendaya and released as “Zapped.”

Her latest book, “Ghosted,” is an exciting story of Ellie who experiences a visit from a ghost that makes the middle-schooler visit her past, present and future selves in an attempt to inspire her to change some of her ways.

In addition to the presentations, Maureen Palacios, owner of Once Upon A Time bookstore in Montrose, gave each student a book written and signed by its author who spoke earlier. The authors talked about how they got started, where their ideas come from, how they created their characters and how to get published.

ALG will continue the tradition of donating $2,000 to the school library so that books can be purchased in any categories.