Warming up the Crowd

Back to the main library in Mansfield -- for some more glimpses into what their summer reading program looks like! Everybody's ready and excited! We're waiting for the arrival of a few more participants to join our fun! So we are playing a few rounds of 'follow-the-leader' to see how quickly they can respond to directions. A little whoop-whoop and some crossing-the-midline joy.

I've written previously about the benefits of crossing-the-midline and how those choreography moves can help the young child wire up their brains in anticipation of reading glory ahead. Read here for some previous insight.

Group after group continues to arrive. These are the 'big-kids' in my experience, so my mind is going through all my various possible selections to focus on. I LUV having maturity in the audience. That opens up all sorts of possibilities for the presentation. In my latest evolution as author/illustrator I am gaining comfort with sharing my materials (songs & books) with the 'big-kids.' Their responses thrill me -- with both their insight and the level of their curiosity.

Get your hands up in the air. Show me some enthusiasm. Pump 'em up!! Some more crossing the midline is always a great way to get those brains functioning on optimal thrusters!

Now one for posterity: CHEEEEEEEESE!!! Show me those pearly smiles!

 

This is the right theme for this audience.

Many stories indeed. It would be fun to listen in on several.

I'll just have to entertain myself by writing their stories

in my imagination.

*******Remember that through the entire month of September I have a promo code for you to receive 20% off the cover price of my book, "Red, White and Blue" -- which does indeed include a CD copy of the song & it's instrumental version inside the back cover. Use the promo code: RWB911 at my website and you'll be ready for Veteran's Day on the horizon.

Happy Hand Highlights

While I'm still walking on air from the recent announcement of my first national book award, I thought this would be a great segway to go back in time again and finish some end-of-the-year spring posts from my various author/illustrator visits to schools. I love walking into an elementary school building to find awesome art projects prominently displayed on the walls. Those graphic hands were created by the mature artists in the building. I love the way these hands of my kindergartners reflect the artwork above!!

On this particular day I had been called to work with the kindergarten students. I like to see their hands at work through our time together. I focus on engaging the students with as many senses as possible..... keeping them engaged as we sing and read and sign and act and march and read and jump and sing and read and sign. This earlier post I discuss the advantages of crossing the midline at length. I love these smiles, caught in the act of strengthing the connection between the hemispheres of their brains!!

Click here for my post on suggestions to arrange an author visit.

Just Why I Love Librarians

I've loved the library as long as I can remember. As long as I've been reading. As long as I could sign my name on my library card and could start bring books home, I've been a library lover. Growing up, we were a family with more imagination than "means." We made up our own entertainment, our own stories, our own songs. In fact, as I think about it, my upbringing was the perfect training for my work of the last fourteen years. It was also the perfect upbringing for making me a library patron extra-ordinaire.

We moved around the state of Indiana as I grew up. I'm a Hoosier. The very first thing we did as a family upon moving into a new location was to go en mass as a family to the local library and sign up for our library cards. I remember arriving in the major metropolis of South Bend from the sleepy little village of Batesville, most famous for it's casket making company. I remember being 'disoriented' by the sheer size of our neighborhood and the traffic!!

But right on cue, we went to the library and I attained my OWN library card. A building with books -- I was at home. I remember walking in that day in awe of the sheer size of the building, the shelves and the volume of books was astounding. But what I remember most is the librarian who asked me just what sort of books I liked to read. Being something of a bookworm, I shared with her that I was a BIG fan of the mystery and that I'd read all of the Nancy Drew series as well as all of the Hardy Boys adventures.

I remember her taking me by the hand and walking me all of the way across the children's department into the ADULT section. She walked me over to the Agatha Christie shelf and told me that she thought I might be ready for Hercule Poirot. It was a pivotal moment in my life. I was about to enter fifth grade and here was an adult listening to me and making a genuine suggestion for my reading pleasure and maturity. I don't know that I ever knew her name, but I am always in debt to her for her welcome & her taking me seriously.

Just one of the many reasons that I love librarians!!

In the land of literacy, one person can make a world of difference to one reader-in-the-making. It might be a kindergarten teacher -- thinking all summer long how to improve the layout of the room for the warmest welcome in launching an individual education. It could be junior high English teacher making an insightful comment on a short story. It might be a college professor taking the time to go beyond the blue book's midterm essay feedback.......... or it might be the local librarian, listening & guiding & keeping the love of reading alive as maturity makes a hurdle forward. It takes a village!!

Who were the 'reading fairies' in your life? The ones who kept your passion for a good book alive? Were there specific teachers in your experience? An author's book that made you tingle with joy over their rich use of language? Was there a librarian in your journey that introduced you to a new shelf of adventure? I'd love to continue the conversation in the comments section here. Please share a teacher, a book, a librarian that made a difference for you.

"Get a Grip!!"

You've gotta love a conference where people stop by your presentation room to give you a hug BEFORE you begin!! The title for my Tuesday presentation was "Get a Grip!" I still smile thinking of the applicability of this title for me in Vegas. (If ever there was an event where I was in need of 'getting-a-grip' this was the one, with my brother Dan in ICU clear across the country, I was more than a tad bit dingier than usual.) This workshop was all about the music and movement to support fine motor development, print directionality and included the disco tune for the holding of a crayon. The first hour I shared the songs and dances that I recorded for the Zaner-Bloser curriculum for Kindergarten 'handwriting.' Of course I always incorporate my "Debbie's Directions" for those in attendance and we practise laughing on cue.....one of my favorite parts of waking up our brains!

Then we had just enough time for me to share one of my favorite quotes, "Why do writers write? Because it isn't there." This simple sentiment from Thomas Berger makes the perfect transition to the sharing of my picture books with the teachers. Oddly, it was at that exact moment that the LCD projector got disconnected from my laptop, right in time for the conclusion section, so everyone had to use their imagination more than I had hoped. Argggggg. 'The show must go on.' Technology is so awesome when it works. Argggggg. I hope that my participants will stop by here at my blog to see the photos that they missed in Vegas. I had wanted them to see the pictures of Carrie's kindergarten quilt for the extension of "Red, White and Blue" and my intention was to conclude with my 'big ending' of the slides of Hajar's invented spelling of "You're Wonderful." Instead I described these visuals and the teachers who supervised the miracles. But we all know a pictures worth a thousand words. Alas.

Just as soon as we concluded with my traditional 'thank you, for singing, today' in sign language we made a bee line up to the fifth floor and the exhibit hall for my earlier scheduled book signing with Crystal Springs Books. I really felt like a full-fledged diva when Melissa Sheldon (the organizer of the entire event for over 6000+++) was personally standing at the elevator with its doors held wide for the benefit of my making a speedy transition. I had 'people' in Vegas!! Whoooop! Whoooop!!

Indiana Excitement!!

National Family Literacy

Dateline. Louisville, KY. Galt House. My first National Family Literacy Conference. We left the testosterone-trio of grandsons at the beach in Daytona to travel cross-country to this amazing event. To be a presenter at an event where Marlee Matlin provides the keynote, is to think I've stretched & grown a bit in the past year. I remember seeing her on Broadway years ago, in "Children of a Lesser God" and being impressed beyond reason at her capability, so it was amazing to have my name in the same program as hers. The response to my workshop was uplifting. These were all sorts of professionals wearing all sorts of hats. The common denominators being reading, books, parents, families and raising everyone up, by raising up reading.

I got to hear just a taste test of the introductory remarks for the event. The thought that stayed with me is that much of a child's performance in their elementary school era can be predicted by the reading level and competancy of the child's mother. This feels something like "teach a person to fish" mentality. Teach a mother to read, if you really want to impact the educational life of the child. Meet the people above who are doing just that: creating projects for adult literacy to impact the children.