Congratulations to Danielle Hammelef who won Galapagos Girl from last week's blog. As the new blog coordinator for the SCBWI-Carolinas blog, I was excited to "meet" Shana Keller through email and schedule her blog on writing picture book biographies. When she told me that her newest biography, Bread for Words was being published by Sleeping… Continue reading Bread for Words– A Frederick Douglass Story: A Picture Book Review and Giveaway
Congratulations to Dorothy Price for winning Mine. Yours. on my blog last week. ******** Today, I welcome my close friend and writing buddy, Linda Phillips. Many of you know her through SCBWI-Carolinas but others of you have read about her on my blog. Either way, I expect you will enjoy this post about facilitating literacy around the… Continue reading Literacy Around the World — Featuring Guest blogger, LInda Phillips
Congratulations to Deborah Allmand who won, Midnight Without a Moon from last week's blog. ****** I'm thankful that each of my five grandchildren's parents are encouraging literacy from an early age. I was on grandma duty last week so allow me to share some pictures and videos I've accumulated over the years. At a few… Continue reading Little Literacy
As some of you know, my life has been pretty busy recently. I spent two weeks in Philadelphia helping out with my youngest granddaughter, Eleanor. This past week my husband and I moved into an apartment in Greenville, SC. Not much time for writing or blogging. Usually this blog is about writing tips, author interviews,… Continue reading Books for Babies: By Eleanor
Posting this blog on Christmas will be too late for this shopping season, but it may influence your shopping choices in 2009. My daughter Lori who is a communications major at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, composed this video after reading, The Better World Shopping Guide. The book is a “comprehensive, up-to-date,… Continue reading Food for Thought for 2009
On February 16 The Charlotte Observer ran a feature article about GranVille Caldwell and Ryan Marshall—two high school English teachers who have recently written and self-published a book of poetry about their experiences in the classrooms. According to the Observer,"Thoughts & Lamentations of Urban Education" is a "quirky 178-page saga of a year in the… Continue reading Charlotte Mecklenburg English Teachers Make Front Page News
According to International Reading Association president Linda Gambrell in a her recent column in Reading Today, the number of teens and young adults who are reading just for fun is decreasing. Citing data from a National Endowment for the Arts report released in November 2007, Gambrell recounted these unsettling statistics:Nearly half of all Americans ages… Continue reading Who reads for pleasure anymore?
"Real reading is reading and thinking at the same time," Ian Carle, fourth grade elementary teacher, Kansas City, Mo.In a recent letter to the editor in Reading Today, Mr. Carle argued that it is time to invent a new word for reading which engages the reader. "...reading is more than just saying the words correctly.… Continue reading Readinking
Here is a novel idea. At each annual visit for thirty years, Dr. Pete Lemaster of Fayetteville, N.C. has asked his patients to read and write for him. "I start them with a drawing when they are four and continue until they're 18," he explained to me recently. By that time he's asking his high… Continue reading A Physician who is Passionate about Literacy
Not only am I addicted to writing and blogging, but apparently I have a growing hobby of talking about literacy with the person sitting next to me on an airplane. Today, as I flew to San Antonio to visit family, I met a professor who formerly taught business management and business statistics at Northeastern Oklahoma… Continue reading On the way to San Antonio