Author+Studies

Post Author Studies Here **Author Cynthia Rylant – A Friend For Life** **by Heather** You know how there are toys that you play with at a certain age? Maybe when you were two you had a favorite toy but then by the age six it didn't interest you anymore. Then there are other toys like a basketball or a bicycle that you seem to never outgrow. Well today I want to introduce you to an author who is like a ball or a bicycle. Her name is Cynthia Rylant and she writes books for all ages. You may already know some of her books like the //Henry and Mudge// series. She has written over 100 books, so there is always something you can read by her. You could start out reading //An Everyday Book// when you are a preschooler (or have an adult read it to you). In 1st and 2nd grade you will enjoy //Henry and Mudge// and her beautiful picture book //, When I was Young in the Mountains.// When you get to the 3rd or or 4th grade then there are longer books like //The Whale// and //Every Living Thing ,// when you get are a middle-schooler you will be ready for //Missing Miss May//, //A Fine White Dust// and //Soda Jerk//.

One reason I like Cynthia Rylant is that she knows that life isn't always easy for kids, but that doesn't mean that life can't be good for them. She was born June 6, 1954 in Hopewell, Virginia. Cynthia was pretty poor for most of her childhood. Her parents separated when she was four and she never saw her father again, although he wrote sometimes. He died when Cynthia was 13. Her mother enrolled in nursing school so that she could get a good job and support Cynthia. But while her mother was in school Cynthia had to go live with her grandparents in West Virginia. Now they were really poor. They had no running water or electricity. Her grandfather was a coal miner in the Appalachian mountains that was and still is a pretty poor part of this country. But her grandparents were very nice and they treated her well. She didn't have a lot of toys or fancy clothes but she was not unhappy (though she did miss her mother). And most of the other kids around her didn't have a lot either, so that made it easier.

When she was eight her mother finished nursing school and they moved to a three room apartment in another town in West Virginia called Beaver. They had electricity and running water and even a TV. As a kid she liked to ride her bicycle and play cops and robbers. She had cats and dog; she loved animals (she still does). Beaver seemed like a big town to Cynthia but when she went off to college she realized it was really pretty small. Cynthia was going to be a nurse like her mother but something happened to her at college that made her change her mind. She discovered books! They didn't have a library in Beaver and she didn't do much reading as a kid, except her school work and comics. In college they had a library. She realized she loved to read and to write. So she majored in English and then went on to graduate school and got another degree in English.

After school she took a job in a library and discovered all the amazing books in the children's section and took them home every night and read them. She got married and had a baby named Nathaniel and around this time she wrote her first book, //When I was Young in the Mountains// ( this is one of my favorite books by her). It is about her life growing up in West Virginia. She just sat down and wrote it in a few hours which is pretty amazing. //When I was Young in the Mountains// won a Caldecott Honor for the illustrations which were done by Diane Good. Not bad for a first try! She wrote another book but she wasn't making enough money, so she decided to go to school and learn to be a children's librarian (and that's another reason I really like her). For a while she worked as a children's librarian and wrote books until eventually she was writing so many books and selling enough of them that she just decided to write full time.

If you read about different writers they all have a different way of getting their work done. Many of them sit down every morning and write. They might just write a page but they write something. But Cynthia writes very fast. Suddenly a story will come to her, and she can write it very quickly; in a day or a week the whole story is done. On the other hand, sometimes she doesn't get an idea for a story for quite a while and in that time she doesn't write. She has written over 100 books. At one point one of her friends encouraged her to paint and do collage. She started doing illustrations for some of her books. //Dog Heaven// is one of the books that she wrote and illustrated (“illustrations” is just a fancy word for the pictures in a book). It's all about what heaven is like for dogs. Her pictures are very simple but they make you smile!

When Cynthia first moved from her small town to a city she realized how poor her family was and how little she knew about the world and for while she was ashamed of this. As she got older she realized that she had a great family and nice life growing up in small towns and she experienced things that other people didn't. She stopped being embarrassed about where she came from. She writes about that in some of her books. Once she was a well known children's author she made it a point to go to some of the little towns in West Virginia where she was from and talk to those kids. She wanted to introduce them to books and show them that everyone has something to contribute and can be proud of themselves in some way.

Cynthia Rylant now lives in Oregon, by the coast. She son is now grown. Cynthia knows from experience that families are made up of lots of people, not just a mother, father and children. So her books have many kinds of families. In the story, //When I was Young in the Mountains// the children live with their grandparents like Cynthia did when she was a small child. Her book //The Cobble Street Cousins// is about cousins who sometimes stay with their aunt when their parents are traveling for work. Henry, in //Henry and Mudge,// lives with his mother and father but he doesn't have any sister or brothers, so his dog Mudge is his best friend and his sibling. In //The Whale,// a cat named Pandora makes friends with a dog named Seabold and together they act as mother and father to three orphan mice, Tiny, Lilly and Whistler. The //Mr. Putter and Tabby// stories are about a man and his cat, and they are family - a family of two. In all these stories the characters are living their lives and having adventures. They aren't worried that they don't have a typical family; they have love and friendship. I'm not the only one who thinks Cynthia Rylant is great. Her books have won many awards. //A Fine White Dust// won a __Newbery Honor__ (1987), which is like being a runner up. //Missing Miss May// won a __Newbery Medal__ (1983) which is first place. Two of her picture books //When I Was Young in the Mountains (1982)// and //The Relatives Came// (1985) won __Caldecott Awards__ ; she did not draw the pictures but the drawings were inspired by her words, and so it's an honor for her too. //The Boston Globe gave// her __The Horn Book Award__ for //Appalachia: The Voices of Sleeping Birds (1991)// and //Missing Miss May (1992).// The American Library Association has an award for the __Best Book of the Year for Young Adults__ and she has won that three times for her books //Kindness// (1998), //Soda Jerk// (1990) and //A Couple of Kooks and Other stories about Love// (1990).

Thank you for giving me your time today. I've made a list of some of Cynthia Rylant's books that you can read now and in the future. I hope you will enjoy reading her books as much as I do!

__**Using Cynthia Rylant to teach writing: a lesson plan for the School Library Media Specialist**__ **Lesson for younger children K-2:** Cythnthia Rylant's stories are a great way to teach children about topic development. Her books are very simple and very focused. Children often have a hard time deciding what to write about. They think their own lives are too ordinary. But many of Rylant's books are about ordinary days and people.

Read //When I was Young in the Moutains// outloud to a group of students. Have them point out the interesting things that the children in the book do. This book is about a life in an earlier time and a different type of community (very rural). How are the activities of the characters in the book similar to or different from their own lives? Write “When I was in 2nd Grade” (or 1st or Kindergarten) on the board. Ask each child to think about what a reader from a future time or a distant place might find interesting about a school day. Remind them that even things that seem ordinary to them might be unusual to someone else. Give a couple of examples from your own day (but not their day; you don't want to steal their ideas). Have each student write one thing about the day in the life of a second grader and make a picture to go with it. Collect the items in a binder and make it a book. **Lesson for older children (Grades 3-5):** Teachers often tell students “don't write a watermelon, write a seed” but it can be hard to focus a plot and eliminate nonessential details. The plotting of Cynthia Rylant's series of short stories //Every Living Thing//, is very tight. Each story is about an individual moment in a person's life.

Read Stories from the book //Every Living Thing//. Take one of the stories and ask students to find the “who, what, where, when and how.” Point out that the stories are each structured around a single event. Ask each child to think of an event they could tell about either in their lives, or in the news. Ask them to write about this events in six sentences. Remind them to focus on “who, what, where,when, how.” Write an example of your own first.

**Favorite titles by Cynthia Rylant to read now and in the future.**

**An Everyday Book** A simple rhyming book for young children about the joys of everyday, like blue boots on a rainy day, hamsters running on wheels, cookies, moon light and snow.

**All In A Day** This book follows a young boy as he goes about his life on a farm, planting seeds and tending to animals. The illustrations (by Nikki McClure) are cut from black paper, like silhouettes, and they are simply terrific!

**Henry and Mudge (series)** What's not to like about an 180 pound dog who follows his boy Henry around whenever he can. I like Mudge because he's not one of those perfect dogs; he eats things she shouldn't (like my dog) and gets into trouble sometimes. Still, he's a good friend to Henry and they have fun together. There are about 30 books in the series, so if you like Henry and Mudge you can keep reading!

**Annie and Snowball (series)** Annie and her pet bunny Snowball live right next door to her cousin, Henry, and his dog Mudge and they are just as fun. But unlike Henry, Annie likes to dress in pink and throw tea parties.

**When I Was Young in the Mountains** This picture book is about life growing up in West Virginia. The children in this book are not wealthy but their lives still have great moments. There are great illustrations of children pumping water from a well, shopping at the general store and, my favorite, four kids posing for a photo with a giant, dead, black snake draped across all four of them (eek!).

**The Relatives Came** A large groups of relative piles into the family wagon and makes the journey to visit their relatives where they spend the summer sleeping on the floor, weeding the garden and having picnics.

**The Lighthouse Family. The Whale** A family made up of a cat mother, a dog father and three mice children live in a lighthouse on an island. One day the children find a lost baby beluga whale. The two older mice fly off on an adventure with an old cormorant (a sea bird who is a friend of the family) in search of the beluga mother.

**Every Living Thing: Stories** A book of short stories about various animals and the people they befriend. Among the stories there is a boy who learns to feel better about himself with the help of his best friend, a turtle; squirrels who help a man get through a tough time in his life; and a Parrot who reminds a teenage boy just how much his father loves him.

**A Fine White Dust** A teenage boy who is very religious thinks he has found a kindred spirit when he meets a traveling preacher. But is he right about this man?

**Missing Miss May** A teenage girl who was raised by an elderly couple, May and Ob, learns about loss when May dies. She struggles to deal with her own grief and also comforts Ob, who becomes very depressed without May at his side.

**Sources For This Book Talk:**

“ Cynthia Rylant //.”Authors and Artists for Young Adults//, June 6, 2002 Biography Index

“ Cynthia Rylant .” //Contemporary Authors Online//, 2010

“Cynthia Rylant." //Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia//. Web. 24 Sept. 2010. .

Rylant, Cynthia. "Cynthia Rylant." //Kidsreads.com//. Web. 24 Sept. 2010. .

Ward, Diane. "Cynthia Rylant." //The Horn Book Magazine// 69.4 (1993): 420+. //General Reference Center Gold//. Web. 27 Sept. 2010

Image borrowed from: http://authors.simonandschuster.net/Cynthia-Rylant/20564573 (October 20, 2010)

Author Study - Patricia Polacco by Mia Rowlands



Patricia Polacco was born in 1944 in Lansing, Michigan which is between Lakes Michigan and Huron. Lansing is the capital of Michigan and is located in the Midwest region of the United States.

When Ms. Polacco was three years old her parents divorced and she moved to her grandparent’s farm in Union City, south of Lansing, with her mother and older brother, Richard. She spent the school year with her mother, who was a teacher. But in the summer, she and her brother stayed with their father who had also moved back to his parent’s house. She loved living on the farm and was very close with both her grandparents. Her mother’s parents were from Russia, her father’s parents were from Ireland and they all shared a love of storytelling. The family was very close and her memories of this time have given her ideas for many of her stories. The family would sit by the fire and tell stories. Some tales were about the family history and some were not. After a story, she and Richard would ask whether it was true or pretend, and her grandmother would reply “Of course it’s true … but it may not have happened.”

When Ms. Polacco was five, her babushka died. Babushka is the Russian word for grandmother but Ms. Polacco usually called her “Bubby.” Her family moved again, this time to Florida for a few years and then finally to Oakland, California were they lived for a long time.

She had been excited about starting school and learning to read but she found it very, very hard. Her classmates teased her and called her names because she could not read or do math like they could. She came to hate school. The single thing her classmates admired that she did was her drawings. Drawing was the only thing she enjoyed doing, except for sitting in a rocking chair at home and dreaming and imagining. Then, when she was 14 years old, a new teacher came to her school and he discovered why she could not read. She was dyslexic. Dyslexia is a learning disability that makes it very hard for students to learn how to read. Mr. Felker, her teacher, got her the help she needed. //Thank you, Mr. Falker// is the story she wrote to tell about her experiences in school and her problems with reading. Now she even has a Ph.D, the highest academic degree you can get!

Ms. Polacco has lived in Australia, England, France and Russia and it was while she was at college in Australia, she met her second husband, Enzo who is from Italy. During World War II, his family was persecuted by the Nazis because they were Jews.

Ms. Polacco did not start writing books until she was 41 years old, after she had raised her family. She has two children, Traci and Steven, who are now grown up. Since then she has had over 50 books published and there are more on the way.

Although Ms. Polacco’s books are Fiction, many of them are based on her childhood or on events in her family’s history, so they are based on true events. Bubby taught Ms. Polacco how to make Pysanky eggs, which are the wonderfully decorated Ukrainian Easter eggs. It was this memory that sparked her idea for //Rechenka's Eggs.// This is a story of a Babushka who paints Ukrainian eggs for the Easter Festival in Moscow. She takes the time to notice and wonder at the world around her. When she finds a goose who has been hurt, she looks after her and names her Rechenka. Rechenka lays beautifully decorated eggs to replace the eggs that Babushka had made and Rechenka had broken.

As in many sibling relationships, an older brother can be annoying. Richard, Ms. Polacco’s big brother, could always do everything better than she could and you can read about her memories in //My Rotten Redheaded Older Brother.// But in the end, she appreciates that he is bigger and stronger and always will be. You can see what they looked like as children because there are photographs at the beginning and end of the book.

When she was a child, Ms. Polacco was afraid of thunderstorms. Michigan has very bad thunderstorms in the summer. Her Babushka helped her to overcome her fear of thunder by making a “Thunder Cake”. From this experience, came the book //Thunder Cake//. The story tells that to make the cake, all the ingredients have to be gathered: the eggs and milk from the barn; the chocolate, flour and sugar from the “dry shed” which is through the woods; and the tomatoes and strawberries from outside the house, before the storm was overhead. The cake must be baked while the storm is overhead. Only someone brave can gather the ingredients under those conditions, and “brave people can’t be afraid of a sound, child”.

In //The Keeping Quilt// Ms. Polacco tells the history of a quilt that has been in her family for four generations. It was made by her great great grandmother for her Great-Gramma Anna who gave it to Grandma Carle who gave it to her mother Mary Ellen who gave it to Patricia who is waiting to give it to her daughter Traci! It was made from scraps of fabric of clothes from members of the family. It was a way to keep the family close even when they were really a long way away in Russia. Through the years it has been used as a table cloth and a “huppa” - the wedding canopy in a Jewish ceremony. It has also been used to welcome new babies into the family, and to keep grandmothers warm. The story explains how Jewish customs have change over the years. A special edition of this book has been published to celebrate the ten years since the first publication. Extra pages have been added to show what has happened in the ten years, including the birth of Ms. Polacco’s son Steven.

From Ms. Polacco’s father’s side of the family comes a story from the time of the Civil War. Her great-great-great grandfather, Sheldon Russell Curtis, nicknamed Say, was 15 years old when he was injured in a battle in Georgia. Pinkus Aylee, an African American nicknamed Pink, rescued him. The two teenagers became friends as Say slowly recovered from his wound. Pink could read and promised to teach Say. In return, Say offered his hand, the hand that had shook the hand of Abraham Lincoln. The boys were Union soldiers but they were in Confederate territory so it was very dangerous. They were captured when they were trying to return to their regiments and taken to Andersonville prison. Pink touched the hand that had shook of hand of Mr. Lincoln one last time before he was taken away and hanged. After several months Say was released and returned home to his family’s farm in Ohio. The story was handed down from generation to generation, so when Ms. Polacco’s father told her the story it ended with, “This is the hand, that has touched the hand, that has touched the hand, that shook the hand of Abraham Lincoln”.

Today our special guest lives in Union City, Michigan. Through Ms. Polacco’s stories you can read about family and history and friendship that cross race and cultures. Please welcome Ms. Polacco!

__** Lesson suggestions **__ · Read stories such as //The Keeping Quilt// and //Betty Doll// and ask students if they have an old quilt or doll or treasure in their family. Have them write a story or poem or draw a picture about their family’s treasure and explain why it is important to them. · Read stories such as //Pink and Say// and //The Butterfly// which tell about historical events in which relatives have been involved. Do their families have stories about the past? Have them write about something that happened to their family in the past. In the classroom these books could be used when studying the Civil War or World War II. · Use //Rechenka's Eggs// to spark students’ imagination coloring eggs. Depending on the grade, they could first make papier mache eggs or drawings of eggs on paper. · Discuss where Ms. Polacco has lived in the US and abroad (Australia, England, France and Russia) and where her family is from (Ukraine, Ireland, Italy). Have students locate the countries on a map of the world and the cities and states on a map of the US. Have them locate the cities, states and countries that their families have come from. What is different about each country? Where would they like to live if they could live anywhere they wanted and why? Draw, write a story or poem about that special place.

**PICTURE BOOKS; SELF-ILLUSTRATED, EXCEPT AS NOTED** Several of Polacco's works have been translated into Spanish. **OTHER**
 * //Meteor!,// Dodd, Mead (New York, NY), 1987.
 * //Rechenka's Eggs,// Philomel (New York, NY), 1988.
 * //Boat Ride with Lillian Two Blossom,// Philomel (New York, NY), 1988.
 * (With Ernest Lawrence Thayer) //Casey at the Bat,// Putnam (New York, NY), 1988.
 * //The Keeping Quilt,// Simon & Schuster (New York, NY), 1988, tenth anniversary edition with eight new drawings, 1998.
 * //Uncle Vova's Tree,// Philomel (New York, NY), 1989.
 * //Babushka's Doll,// Simon & Schuster (New York, NY), 1990.
 * //Just Plain Fancy,// Bantam (New York, NY), 1990.
 * //Thunder Cake,// Philomel (New York, NY), 1990.
 * //Some Birthday!,// Simon & Schuster (New York, NY), 1991.
 * //Appelemando's Dreams,// Philomel (New York, NY), 1991.
 * //Chicken Sunday,// Philomel (New York, NY), 1992.
 * //Mrs. Katz and Tush,// Bantam (New York, NY), 1992.
 * //Picnic at Mudsock Meadow,// Putnam (New York, NY), 1992.
 * //The Bee Tree,// Putnam (New York, NY), 1993.
 * //Babushka Baba Yaga,// Philomel (New York, NY), 1993.
 * //My Rotten Redheaded Older Brother,// Simon & Schuster (New York, NY), 1994.
 * //Pink and Say,// Philomel (New York, NY), 1994.
 * //Tikvah Means Hope,// Doubleday (New York, NY), 1994.
 * //Babushka's Mother Goose// (collection of stories and poems), Philomel (New York, NY), 1995.
 * //My Ol' Man,// Philomel (New York, NY), 1995.
 * //The Trees of the Dancing Goats,// Simon & Schuster (New York, NY), 1996.
 * //Aunt Chip and the Great Triple Creek Dam Affair,// Philomel (New York, NY), 1996.
 * //I Can Hear the Sun: A Modern Myth,// Philomel (New York, NY), 1996.
 * //In Enzo's Splendid Gardens,// Philomel (New York, NY), 1997.
 * //Uncle Isaaco,// Philomel (New York, NY), 1997.
 * //Mrs. Mack,// Philomel (New York, NY), 1998.
 * //Thank You, Mr. Falker,// Philomel (New York, NY), 1998.
 * //Welcome Comfort,// Philomel (New York, NY), 1999.
 * //Luba and the Wren,// Philomel (New York, NY), 1999.
 * //The Calhoun Club,// Philomel (New York, NY), 2000.
 * //The Butterfly,// Philomel (New York, NY), 2000.
 * //Betty Doll,// Philomel (New York, NY), 2001.
 * //Mr. Lincoln's Way,// Philomel (New York, NY), 2001.
 * //When Lightning Comes in a Jar,// Philomel (New York, NY), 2002.
 * //A Christmas Tapestry,// Philomel (New York, NY), 2002.
 * //The Graves Family,// Philomel (New York, NY), 2003.
 * //G Is for Goat,// Philomel (New York, NY), 2003.
 * //An Orange for Frankie,// Philomel (New York, NY), 2004.
 * //Oh, Look!,// Philomel (New York, NY), 2004.
 * //John Philip Duck,// Philomel (New York, NY), 2004.
 * //Mommies Say Shhh!,// Philomel (New York, NY), 2005.
 * //The Graves Family Goes Camping,// Philomel (New York, NY), 2005.
 * //Emma Kate,// Philomel (New York, NY), 2005.
 * //Something about Hensley's,// Philomel (New York, NY), 2006.
 * //Rotten Richie and the Ultimate Dare,// Philomel (New York, NY), 2006.
 * //Ginger and Petunia,// Philomel (New York, NY), 2007.
 * //The Lemonade Club,// Philomel Books, p2007, c2007
 * //For the love of Autumn//, Philomel Books, p2008, c2008
 * //Someone for Mr. Sussman,// Philomel Books, p2008
 * //In Our Mother's House//, Philomel Books, p2009,
 * //January's Sparrow//, Philomel Books, p2009,
 * //The junkyard wonders,// Philomel Books, p2010
 * //Firetalking// (autobiography), photographs by Lawrence Migdale, Richard C. Owen (Katonah, NY), 1994.

//Firetalking// (autobiography), photographs by Lawrence Migdale, Richard C. Owen (Katonah, NY), 1994. “Getting to Know Patrica Polacco” //Book Links Sept. 2005.//

Patricia Polacco. home page. []

//“//Patrica Polacco.” //Contemporary Authors Online.// Detroit: Gale, 2009. //Gale Biography in Context. Web. 30 Sept. 2010//

“Polacco, Patricia.” //Something about the Author//. V. 123 New York: Gale, 2001

**Jon Scieszka**

//Author Study// //by Susan Shatford// Jon Randy Scieszka’s story begins in Flint, Michigan on September 8th, 1954, when he was born. (He says his last name rhymes with Fresca and is pronounced CHEES-kah.) Jon grew up with 1 older brother and 4 younger brothers, in addition to his parents. He claims to be the smartest, nicest, best looking, and most humble of the six children. His mother, Shirley, was a registered nurse and his father, Louis, was an elementary school principal. As Jon would tell you, thankfully his father was not the principal at his school, because that would just have been weird. His father always treated Jon and his brothers with respect by listening to their stories and jokes. His dad believed that children had something important to say if you would only listen to them. This stayed with Jon throughout his life.

His favorite author growing up was Dr. Seuss. Jon loved to read and write. He wrote poems and stories. Jon dreamed of some day becoming an author. When in the school library, he would go to the section where his books would someday be shelved. After graduating from college, Jon could have gone to medical school because of his good grades and interest in math and science, but instead he chose to take writing classes at Columbia University in New York. Writing was his passion. He kept a notebook with him and was always writing his ideas down. Sometimes he would use them, but most importantly he felt a good writer should always write because that is how you find your own voice. His great education helped him look at things in different ways which was perfect for a writer. Jon knew that he wanted to write stories that children found humorous. When asked where all of his ideas for stories came from, he would let people know that some of them came from adventures that he and his brothers had when they were young. However, most of his stories, such as the Time Warp Trio series, The True Story of the Three Little Pigs, and The Stinky Cheese Man came from other stories that he liked and just decided to tell the story from a different character’s perspective.

His first book //The True Story of the Three Little Pigs// was not an instant success with publishers. Jon knew that he wanted illustrations to go with his text, but he definitely didn’t want any pretty pastel illustrations. He wanted something different. It wasn’t until Jon teamed up with illustrator, Lane Smith, that a publisher decided to publish the book. The book was a huge success selling over 250,000 copies because it did what Jon liked to do the best, poke fun at traditional fairy tales and write them from a different character’s point of view, in this case the wolf’s. In this story Jon took the traditional story of The Three Little Pigs and gave his readers another possible reason for the events that we all know happened in the original book. This time the wolf was not to blame for the deaths of the three little pigs. In Jon’s version, the wolf had a bad cold and mistakenly sneezed the houses down, which ended up killing the pigs. The wolf may have been innocent but just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. Jon went on to write //The Stinky Cheese Man// that later won a Caldecott Honor award.

Jon has written fables, picture storybooks, leveled readers, illustrated chapter books, graphic novels, and a fairy tale. Jon is best known for his books //The True Story of the Three Little Pigs//, //The Stinky Cheese Man// and the series //The Time Warp Trio//. He mostly writes fantasy books in the series //The Time Warp Trio//. With the increasing interest in graphic novels by young readers, Jon has also written some graphic novels for //The Time Warp Trio// series. Above all else, Jon is known for his humor and it is obvious in his writing.

//The Time Warp Trio// consists of three boys, Fred, Sam and Joe, who with the help of a mysterious book, time travel forwards and backwards in time to some historical event. Along the journey, they get into trouble, find someone to help them, learn something about that time and place, expose the bad guy, and return to their time. The books are filled with what Jon refers to as 2nd grade boy humor. There is action, adventure, history, and humor in every book. Some of the different books in the series are about cavemen, the future year of 2095, an ancient Mayan civilization, ancient Egypt, Samurai’s in Japan, Da Vinci, medieval knights, pirates, Marco Polo, and Ancient Greece. Jon has written 55 books in total.

Jon was named as the first National Ambassador for Young People’s Literature. His special assignment was to reach the reluctant reader. Jon liked his work as a National Ambassador, because those same reluctant readers are who he tried to reach with his books and through his own non-profit literacy program for boys, which was called //Guys Read//. He even has a fun website which on the home page has lists recommended books by topics. While some are his books, he also lists those from other authors. He posted a really neat tip on his “New Book on the Pile,” which is //Search For Wandla.// It tells the reader that by putting certain spots in the book up to their webcam, they will see something different in the landscape. Jon uses a variety of techniques to get the reluctant reader to read.

Jon has more recently started a preschool/kindergarten series, //Trucktown//. This is part of his Guys Read literacy program that he developed to get young boys to read. This series of books contains 13 different trucks each with its own personality similar to those of a preschooler. In this series some of the friends you will find are Jack Truck who is the prankster action hero, Dump Truck Dan who is Jack Truck’s best friend and a strong truck that likes to show off, Cement Mixer Melvin who is always worried, Gabriella Garbage Truck who is a social butterfly, Grader Kat who is sensitive and creative especially when it comes to the different designs in her tire treads, and Big Rig who is Trucktown’s bully. In addition to writing several books in this series, Jon also has other authors writing these books.

In an effort to get children to read this new series, Jon has partnered with Cheerios and First Book. Jon said that he would give away 100,000 books to kids in need across the country. In addition to this book giveaway, starting in 2009, Jon provided Cheerios with 6 million bilingual books titled //Junkyard Fort// from the Trucktown series that would be free and only found in Cheerios boxes. To find out more about this series, coloring pages, and fun ideas visit Jon at his web site. Jon has shown through his writing, web sites, and partnerships with Cheerios and First Book that he is committed to getting every child at a variety of ages to read and adding some humor along the way.

**__SLMS Lesson Plan__** **Audience:** This lesson is meant for children in 2nd grade. **Purpose**//:// To help children identify the differences and similarities of the familiar children’s story //The Three Little// //Pigs// versus that told by Jon Scieszka in //The True Story of the Three Little Pigs//. Introduce the children to telling a story from different perspectives. **Materials:** //The Three Little Pigs// by Paul Galdone & //The True Story of the Three Little Pigs// by Jon Scieszka **Duration**: This will take two weeks.

**Week 1**
 * Tell the children that we are going to compare two versions of //The Three Little Pigs//.
 * While they may have heard many different versions of this classic children’s story there will only be two books that they will be comparing.
 * Ask children to raise their hands if they have heard the story //The Three Little Pigs.//
 * Show the children the cover and tell them the author’s name.
 * Tell the children that they are looking for 6 elements in a fairy tale. (A visual chart of the 6 elements will also be posted as a reminder.)
 * A quick beginning
 * A quick ending
 * Flat characters (not much explanation of the characters)
 * The use of the numbers 3 or 7
 * Repetition of words or phrases
 * Magical Transformations (or things that just don’t happen in real life)
 * Tell the children to make the silent connection sign when they hear any of the elements.
 * Read //The Three Little Pigs// by Paul Galdone.
 * Ask the children questions on the story that they just heard. Ask them questions on each of the 6 elements. Ask them to describe the pigs and the wolf.
 * Allow children enough time to pick out books. Have various children’s fairy tales on display.

**Week 2**
 * Show children //The Three Little Pigs// that you read last week.
 * Ask children to tell you something about last week’s book.
 * Ask questions about the different characters to refresh their memory of last week’s book.
 * Remind children that they are comparing last week’s book //The Three Little Pigs// by Paul Galdone to this week’s book //The True Story of the Three Little Pigs// by Jon Scieszka.
 * Show children the book //The True Story of the Three Little Pigs.//
 * Ask children if they have ever read this version of the story.
 * Tell the children that this version gives a different perspective on the story //The Three Little Pigs//. (As an example tell the children that if two people in their class had the same experience on the playground regarding not sharing a ball, each child might have a different version of who was at fault. This is a good example of different perspectives.)
 * Ask children what you notice about the cover of the story.
 * Remind the children that you want them to notice the characters in this book and see who is telling the story.
 * While I read the story I want you to listen for the 6 elements of the story.
 * A quick beginning
 * A quick ending
 * Flat characters (not much explanation of the characters)
 * The use of the numbers 3 or 7
 * Repetition of words or phrases
 * Magical Transformations (or things that just don’t happen in real life)
 * Tell the children to make the silent connection symbol when they hear these elements.
 * Read //The True Story of the Three Little Pigs//.
 * After the story, ask the children if they notice any things that are the same in the two stories. (Ask for examples from the story to support what they say.)
 * Ask the children if they notice any things that are different in the two stories. (Ask for examples from the story to support what they say.)
 * See if the children know who is telling this story.
 * Ask them if they know why the wolf would tell this story.
 * Allow children enough time to pick out books. This time have a display of different versions of //The Three Little Pigs// only on display.

**Awards and Recognition**
 * 1993 – Caldecott Honor for //The Stinky Cheese Man and Other Fairly Stupid Tales//
 * 1994 - [|Rhode Island Children's Book Award] for //The Stinky Cheese Man and Other Fairly Stupid Tales//
 * 1995 - Blue Ribbon Book from the [|Bulletin Center for Children's Books] for //Math Curse//
 * 1995 - [|Publishers Weekly] Best Children's Book for //Math Curse//
 * 1996 - [|American Library Association] Notable Book for //Math Curse//
 * 1997 - [|Golden Archer Award] for //The Stinky Cheese Man and Other Fairly Stupid Tales//
 * 1997 - Maine's [|Student Book Award] for //Math Curse//
 * 1997 - [|Texas Bluebonnet Award] for //Math Curse//
 * 1997 - New Hampshire's [|The Great Stone Face Book Award] for //Math Curse//

__ Illustrated Books __
· //[|The True Story of the Three Little Pigs]// - Viking Press – 1989 · //[|The Frog Prince, Continued]// - Viking Press - 1991 · //[|The Stinky Cheese Man and Other Fairly Stupid Tales]// - Viking Press – 1992 · //[|Math Curse]// - Viking Press – 1995 · //[|The Book That Jack Wrote]// - Viking Press – 1997 · //[|Squids Will Be Squids]// - Viking Press - 1998 · //[|Baloney, (Henry P.)]// - Viking Press - 2001 · //[|Science Verse]// - Viking Press – 2004 · //[|Seen Art?]-// Viking Press//- 2005// · //[|Cowboy and Octopus]// - Viking Press – 2007 · //Knucklehead: Tall Tales and Almost True Stories of Growing up Scieszka// – Viking Press - 2008 · //Walt Disney’s Alice in Wonderland// (Retelling) – Disney Press - 2008 · //Robot Zot-// [|Simon & Schuster Children's Publishing] - 2009

__The Time Warp Trio__
· //[|Knights of the Kitchen Table]// - (Viking) Penguin Books – 1991 · //[|The Not-so-Jolly Roger]//- (Viking) Penguin Books – 1991 · //The Good, the Bad, and the Goofy// – (Viking) Penguin Books – 1992 · //Your Mother Was a Neanderthal –// (Viking) Penguin Books – 1993 · //2095 –// (Viking) Penguin Books – 1995 · //Tut Tut –// (Viking) Penguin Books - 1996 · //[|Summer Reading Is Killing Me!]// - [|Penguin Books] - 1998 · //[|It's All Greek to Me]// – (Viking) Penguin Books – 1999 · //See You Later, Gladiator// – (Viking) Penguin Books - 2000 · //[|Sam Samurai]// – (Viking) Penguin Books – 2002 · //Hey Kid, Want to Buy a Bridge?// – (Viking) Penguin Books – 2002 · //Viking It and Liking It –// (Viking) Penguin Books - 2002 · //[|Me Oh Maya] –// (Viking) Penguin Books - 2003 · //Da Wild, Da Crazy, Da Vinci// – (Viking) Penguin Books - 2004 · //Oh Say, I Can't See// – (Viking) Penguin Books - 2005 · //Marco? Polo!// – (Viking) Penguin Books – 2006 · //You Can’t, but Genghis Khan// (co-authored with Jennifer Frantz) – Harper Festival – 2006 · //Lewis and Clark…and Jodie, Freddi, and Samantha// – Harper Collins - 2006 · //Meet You at Waterloo// – Turtleback - 2007 · //Wushu Were Here// – Harper Festival - 2007

__The Time Warp Trio (Graphic Novels)__
· //Time Warp Trio, Volume 1: Nightmare on Joe’s Street// – Harper Trophy – 2006 · //Time Warp Trip, Volume 2: The Seven Blunders of The World// – Turtleback- 2006 · //Time Warp Trio, Volume 3: Plaid to the Bone// (coauthored with Amy court Kaemon) – Harper Collins – 2007 · //Time Warp Trio, Volume 4: Meet You at Waterloo// – Harper Collins - 2007

__Trucktown Series__
Picture Storybooks: · // [|Smash! Crash!] // - [|Simon & Schuster Children's Publishing] - 2008 · // [|Melvin Might?] // - Simon & Schuster Children's Publishing – 2008 · //Truckery Rhymes// – Simon & Schuster Children’s Publishing – 2009 · //Welcome to Trucktown//! – Simon & Schuster Children’s Publishing – 2010 · //The Great Truck Rescue// - Simon & Schuster Children’s Publishing – 2010

Ready-To-Roll Books:
 * //Pete’s Party// (Level 1) - [|Simon & Schuster Children's Publishing] - 2008
 * //Snow Trucking// (Level1) - [|Simon & Schuster Children's Publishing] - 2008
 * //Zoom! Boom! Bully// (Level 1) - [|Simon & Schuster Children's Publishing] - 2008
 * //Uh-Oh, Max// (Level 1) - [|Simon & Schuster Children's Publishing] - 2009
 * //Spooky Tire// (Level 1) - [|Simon & Schuster Children's Publishing] - 2009
 * //Kat’s Mystery Gift// (Level 1) - [|Simon & Schuster Children's Publishing] - 2009
 * //Melvin’s Valentine// (Level 1) - [|Simon & Schuster Children's Publishing] - 2009
 * //Dizzy Izzy// (Level1) - [|Simon & Schuster Children's Publishing] – 2010
 * //Garage Tales// (Level 1) Hardcover combination of //Pete’s Party, Uh-Oh, Max, and Dizzy Izzy// - [|Simon & Schuster Children's Publishing] – 2010

__Spaceheadz Series__

 * //SPHDZ Book #1 -// [|Simon & Schuster Children's Publishing] – 2010
 * //SPHDZ Book #2// - [|Simon & Schuster Children's Publishing] – 2010

__Edited Books__

 * //[|Guys Write for Guys Read]// – Viking Press – 2005
 * //Guys Read: Funny Business// – Walden Pond Press - 2010

Galdone, Paul. //The Three Little Pigs//. New York, NY: Houghton Mifflin/Clarion, 1970. //GUYS READ//. Web. 10 Oct. 2010. . //Jon Scieszka Worldwide//. Web. 10 Oct. 2010. . Marcus, Leonard S. //Side By Side: Five Favorite Picture-book Teams Go to Work//. New York, NY: Walker & Company, 2001. Marcus, Leonard S., and Judy Blume. //Author Talk: Conversations with Judy Blume ... [et Al.]//. New York, NY: Simon & Schuster for Young Readers, 2000. Norton, Donna E. //Through The Eyes of a Child: An Introduction to Children’s Literature//, 7th ed. Pearson: New Jersey, 2007. "Parents' Page :: Jon Scieszka's Trucktown." //New Book Releases, Bestsellers, Author Info. & More at Simon & Schuster//. Web. 10 Oct. 2010. . "Reading Rockets: An Interview with Jon Scieszka." //Reading Rockets: Reading Comprehension & Language Arts Teaching Strategies for Kids//. Web. 10 Oct. 2010. . Scieszka, Jon. //Baloney, (Henry P.)//. illus. by Lane Smith. New York, NY: Viking Press, 2001. Scieszka, Jon. Cowboy & Octopus. illus. by Lane Smith. New York, NY: Viking Press, 2007. Scieszka, Jon//. The Frog Prince Continued//. illus by Steve Johnson. New York, NY: Viking Press, 1991. Scieszka, Jon. //Guys Write For Guys Read//. New York, NY: Viking Press, 2005. Scieszka, Jon. //Knuclkehead: Tall Tales & Mostly True Stories About Growing Up Scieszka//. New York, NY: Viking Press, 2005. Scieszka, Jon. //Math Curse.// illus. bv Lane Smith. New York, NY: Viking Press, 1995. Scieszka, Jon. //Melvin Might?// illus by David Shannon, Loren Long, & David Gordon. New York, NY: Simon & Schuster, 2008. Scieszka, Jon. //Me Oh Maya//. illus. by Adam McCauley. New York: Viking, 2003. Scieszka, Jon. //Science Verse//. illus. by Lane Smith. New York, NY: Viking Press, 2004. Scieszka, Jon. //Seen Art?// illus. by Lane Smith. New York, NY: Viking Press, 2005. Scieszka, Jon. //Smash! Crash!// illus. by David Shannon, Loren Long, & David Gordon. New York, NY: Simon & Schuster, 2008. Scieszka, Jon. //Squids Will Be Squids//. illus. by Lane Smith. New York, NY: Viking Press, 1998. Scieszka, Jon. //The Stinky Cheese Man and Other Fairly Stupid Tales//. illus. by Lane Smith. New York, NY: Viking Press, 1992. Scieszka, Jon. //The True Story of the 3 Little Pigs//. illus. by Lane Smith. New York, NY: Viking Press, 1989. //Time Warp Trio Home//. Web. 09 Oct. 2010. .
 * __Sources:__**

Image borrowed from: [] on October 23, 2010

Author Study: Kevin Henkes Elizabeth Lutwak



Kevin Henkes (pronounced HEN – kus) was born in Racine, Wisconsin in 1960. The fourth of five children, he was “the baby” of the family for six years. Henkes visited the library often as a child, and especially loved the illustrations of Crockett Johnson (//Harold and the Purple Crayon// ), Garth Williams ( //Bedtime for Frances, Little House on the Prairie)// and William Steig ( //Sylvester and the Magic Pebble, Dr. De Soto// ). He lived near an art museum and visited often. Although he had lots of art books at home, he was fascinated by the fact that some artists used thick paint with visible brush strokes while others used thin washes. He studied painting and drawing as a child, taking classes at the museum in summer, and hoped to become an illustrator. His older brother was considered the artist in the family, and Henkes was somewhat envious of the ease with which his brother, who is six years older than him, was able to render realistic paintings of his subjects. His favorite thing to draw is mice – not real mice but mice who wear clothes and live in houses like his and have feelings like people have.

In his junior year of high school, a teacher admired and encouraged Henkes as a writer, and he began to think of writing as well as illustrating books. After his first year of college, at the age of nineteen, Henkes spent all of his savings on a trip to New York City. He brought three portfolios of his work to show them to publishers of children’s books. He was hoping to get a job as a children’s book author. He started out on Monday and by Tuesday had received his first contract to illustrate a book with Greenwillow Books. The book was titled //All Alone// and was published in 1981.

Henkes grew up with four siblings in a neighborhood filled with children. He describes his work as, “quiet family stories that mirror my life pretty closely.” The main theme or subject matter running through Henkes’s work are the interpersonal relationships of children, whether with other children or with adults. His stories are inspired by real children. For example, a niece dealing with a new baby in the house was the inspiration for //Julius The Baby of the World//, and a little girl in an airport showing off a gaudy purse and driving her father crazy inspired //Lilly’s Purple Plastic Purse//. Every story begins with a character. Once Henkes has decided upon a character, he then builds the story around the character.

Henkes’s early works feature realistic depictions of children, often with the theme of a child’s need for some alone time. //All Alone//, //Shhhh// , and //Grandpa and Bo// all feature children who spend time by themselves in a peaceful way. Henkes began featuring mice as his main characters as he began writing more humorous stories. Animals gave him more options for humor that perhaps would not work with human characters. For example, in //Julius, the Baby of the World//, Lilly expresses her anger at a new baby brother by pinching his tail.

Henkes has published forty-one books, both picture books and novels. Two more are due to be published in 2011, bringing the total to forty-three. Although he has illustrated the majority of his picture books, seven of his books are illustrated by other artists. Two of his books, //Oh!// and //Birds// were illustrated by his wife, Laura Dronzek. Henkes’s own style of illustration has varied; some of his illustrations are realistic drawings done in black and white ( //Grandpa & Bo// ), some are realistic painting ( //Shhhh// ) and many are filled with bright colors – such as //My Garden// and //Owen// - and have a cartoonish, whimsical feel to them. //Kitten’s First Full Moon//, featuring black and white illustrations, won the Caldecott award in 2005.

Henkes has written and published both picture books for children from preschool age through grade 3 as well as a number of novels. Whether he is writing picture books or novels, Henkes’s books can generally be classified as belonging to the genre of realistic fiction. Although some of his stories feature mice instead of people, all of his books are about characters facing real life situations that many people, particularly children, can recognize as familiar, such as getting along with brothers and sisters, what makes a friend a friend, and how we feel about our parents and teachers at different ages and in different situations. The simplicity of Henkes’s stories, and the common, everyday situations faced by his characters, make Henkes’s stories so important. By showing, for example, how one of his characters gets through a hard situation, like having a friend stay at your home and drive you crazy, with a sense of humor and grace, allows the reader to both recognize similar situations that they may face as well as creative ways to handle them and positive ways of thinking about them.

Henkes’s best known works in the picture book category are his “mouse books.” //A Weekend with Wendell//, //Sheila Rae, the brave// and //Julius, the Baby of the World// were his first mouse books. Both books feature main characters who are mice. In //Sheila Rae// we meet a very brave little girl who is proud of the fact that she is not afraid of anything. Her little sister admires this, but may feel a bit envious or inferior because of her own fears. Their relationship changes when Sheila Rae gets lost while trying out a new way home from school one day. Being lost frighten Sheila Rae – a new feeling for her. Her little sister rescues her by showing her the way home. At the end, Sheila Rae appreciates her sister in a new way, and her sister feels that she is brave, too. Similarly, in //Julius, the Baby of the World//, Lilly struggles with feelings of anger and jealousy about her new baby brother. No matter how hard her parents, grandmother, and others try to help her accept and appreciate him, she resents his presence. But, when a cousin says that she, too, doesn’t like him and says unkind things about him, Lilly gets angry and defends her brother. This leads her to a new feeling about her brother and she comes to like him. Henkes’s mouse books, of which there are fourteen, all deal with simple situations such as those in //Sheila Rae// and //Julius//. Facing fears, being teased, learning to include new friends, and being punished by a favorite teacher are among the subjects.

Henkes’s best known novels include //Olive’s Ocean// and //Protecting Marie//. Like his mouse books, the characters in these stories are all facing things that happen to many children. Mostly, like the mouse books, they are about growing up and learning how to get along with and appreciate other people. //Olive’s Ocean// begins with a fairly dramatic event – the death of a classmate – but the story is more about the main character’s feelings about how she sees the people in her family and her friends differently as she gets older. Martha begins to think about the fact that her grandmother is old and will not live forever. Her feelings for boys change from friends, to unimportant, to romantic. Her feelings for her mother change dramatically from moment to moment. By exploring these feelings in the context of these many relationships, Martha begins to feel okay about growing up.

//Protecting Marie// is about a young girl who lives with parents who are older than those of her friends’ parents. Franny’s parents live in and enjoy a neat, predictable household where the noise and mess of children seem out of place. The story’s main subject is Franny’s fear that her father will take things away from her that she sees as important but that irritate her father – like her dog. In contrast to her own family is that of her best friend, who lives with many brothers and sisters in a messy, noisy household. As Franny matures, and her father does not take away the second dog he has given to her as he did the first, she comes to see her father as a person and her fears begin to go away.

__Lesson. Grade 4__. Read aloud three of the mouse books: //Owen//, //Julius, the Baby of the World// , and //Chrysanthemum//. Have the students imagine a character that they would recognize in their own life and could build a story around. Provide a worksheet that provides space to visualize the character by drawing it, as well as the following questions with space to answer: Is my character a boy or a girl? What kind of personality does my character have? Happy? Sad? Fearful? Proud? What kinds of situations does my character’s personality shine in? What kinds of problems might my character’s personality cause with others?

__Sources__ Bookpage.com. //A not-so-modest mouse//. Web. 10/2/10.  Cooperative Children’s Book Center, School of Education, University of Wisconsin – Madison. //Wisconsin Authors and Illustrators: Kevin Henkes//. Web. 10/2/10.  Cummings, Pat, ed. //Talking with Artists//. New York: Simon and Schuster. 1995.  Henkes, Kevin. //A Weekend with Wendell//. New York: Greenwillow Books. 1986.  Henkes, Kevin. //All Alone.// New York: Greenwillow Books. 1981.  Henkes, Kevin. //Birds//. Illustrated by Laura Dronzek. New York: Greenwillow Books. 2009.  Henkes, Kevin. //Chrysanthemum//. New York: Greenwillow Books. 1991.  Henkes, Kevin. //Grandpa & Bo//. New York: Greenwillow Books. 2002.  Henkes, Kevin. //Julius, the baby of the world//. New York: Greenwillow Books. 1990.  Henkes, Kevin. //Kitten’s First Full Moon//. New York: Greenwillow Books. 2004.  Henkes, Kevin. //Lilly’s Purple Plastic Purse//. New York: Greenwillow Books. 1996.  Henkes, Kevin. //My Garden//. New York: Greenwillow Books. 2010.  Henkes, Kevin. //Oh!// Illustrated by Laura Dronzek. New York: Greenwillow Books. 1999.  Henkes, Kevin. //Olive’s Ocean//. New York: Greenwillow Books. 2003.  Henkes, Kevin. //Owen//. New York: Greenwillow Books. 1993.  Henkes, Kevin. //Protecting Marie//. New York: Greenwillow Books. 1995.  Henkes, Kevin.//Sheila Rae, the brave//. New York: Greenwillow Books. 1987.  Henkes, Kevin. //Shhhh//. New York: Greenwillow Books. 1989.  Henkes, Kevin. //Sun & Spoon.// New York: Greenwillow Books. 1997.  Holmes, Sally, ed. //Sixth book of junior authors & illustrators//. New York: H.W. Wilson Company. 1989.  Kevinhenkes.com. //Meet Kevin Henkes//. Web. 10/1/10.  Norton, Donna E. //Through the Eyes of a Child//. Upper Saddle river, N.J.: Prentice Hall. 2007.  Silvey, Anita, ed. //The Essential Guide to Children’s Books and Their Creators//. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company. 2002.

= **Chris Van Allsburg** = **by Britt Sorensen** ====Have you ever seen the movie //The Polar Express//? How about //Jumanji// or //Zathura//? If you’ve seen any of these films, you’ve experienced some of the imaginative storytelling of author and illustrator Chris Van Allsburg. Born in Grand Rapids, Michigan in 1949, Chris Van Allsburg has become one of the best known children’s authors and illustrators of our time. But you might be surprised to know that he didn’t always have his mind set on being an author or an illustrator! In fact, he changed his mind many times as a young person, pursuing many different interests before developing the talents he is most famous for today. In high school in Grand Rapids, Mr. Van Allsburg excelled at math and science, and even though he liked to draw, he didn’t actually take art classes. But when a college admissions officer came to his high school, Mr. Van Allsburg decided to apply to the University of Michigan’s Architecture and Design School because it sounded interesting to him. Once he began college, he focused on sculpture, which he found he was very good at because it was similar to building the model cars and boats he had enjoyed as a boy.====

====After graduating from University of Michigan, Chris Van Allsburg graduated and went on to the Rhode Island School of Design to pursue a graduate degree in sculpture, and he even set up his own sculpture studio once he graduated. Sculpture continued to be Chris Van Allsburg’s focus, but in his spare time he also enjoyed drawing. Although he didn’t consider his drawing to be very important, his wife and others were big fans of his illustrations and encouraged him to illustrate children’s books. When Mr. Van Allsburg showed his illustrations to a publisher, the publisher suggested he try to write his own stories instead of using his illustrations for books written by others. Even though he still considered himself to be mainly a sculptor, he went ahead and tried to write a book with illustrations and created __The Garden of Abdul Gasazi__, which was published in 1979. In 1980, he received the Caldecott Honor Medal for this book. After this, he decided he should try to write more books. He won two more Caldecott Medals for __The Polar Express__ (1985), and __Jumanji__ (1981), as well as numerous other awards, such as the National Book Award, Boston Globe Honor Award, and the Regina Medal for lifetime achievement. He continues to live and work in Rhode Island and is married with two daughters.====

====Chris Van Allsburg’s stories are in the fantasy and/or mystery genre, and frequently feature realistic characters who have been placed into suddenly supernatural circumstances. He creates picture storybooks which are most appealing to students in grades 2-4, although even older students enjoy his imaginative stories. Because he also illustrates his own books, his narratives come across as very vivid and realistic, even when the subject matter is clearly fantastical in nature. His most famous and popular books for children are probably __The Polar Express__ (1985), __Jumanji__ (1981), and __Zathura__ (2002), which have been made into major feature films. However, he is also the author of such famous and award winning books as __The Sweetest Fig__ (1993), __Two Bad Ants__ (1988), __The Widow’s Broom__ (1992), __The Mysteries of Harris Burdick__ (1984)__,__and many others. His artistic style is almost immediately recognizable, and plays as much part in the narrative as his writing. Most of the time he works with carbon pencil and charcoal, and his books feature monochromatic, subtly shaded, and very detailed illustrations. A few of his books do have dramatically different styles, such as __Bad Day at Riverbend__ (2005) which was inspired by his daughter Sophia and is drawn as a child’s coloring book. In books such as __The Wreck of the Zephyr__ (1983), __The Polar Express__(1985), and __The Wretched Stone__ (1991), Mr. Van Allsburg illustrates with vivid color, but his style is still instantly recognizable. He has written sixteen books for children, in addition to collaborating with author Mark Helprin as an illustrator. In addition to being excellent books for teaching characteristics of fantasy, Chris Van Allsburg’s books may be tied into other areas of the curriculum, such as using __Jumanji__ (1981) to teach about probability, using __Ben’s Dream__ (1982) to teach about world landmarks, or tying Two Bad Ants (1988) into a nonfiction study of ants or insects. Ready to use discussion guides, perfectly suited to the needs of the library or classroom teacher may be found at [].====

**Using the Six Traits of Writing with __The Mysteries of Harris Burdick__**
====**Objective**: Students will compose a creative descriptive story using the title, caption, and illustration of one of the pictures in __The Mysteries of Harris Burdick__ as a prompt. If done as only one draft, the focus may be on ideas, organization, word choice, and/or voice. Subsequent lessons, ideally with the classroom or English Language Arts teacher as a collaborator, may focus on sentence fluency and conventions.====

**Grade Levels**: 3-6
====**Lesson Summary**: Ideally this lesson could be completed in collaboration with the classroom or English Language Arts teacher. Students could write and share their stories in one or two library periods, or the project could be extended with subsequent revisions and editing, resulting in longer, more developed stories to be published and shared.==== ====Introduce the book, __The Mysteries of Harris Burdick__, by reading the author’s note about the origin of the pictures to the students. Explain to the students that they will be choosing one of the pictures to write a story about, with a focus on word choice and voice to make their story interesting. So that students may view all of the pictures in order to make their choice, it may be ideal to have a portfolio copy of the book available so that the pictures can be displayed around the room.==== ====After students have chosen one picture to write about, they will be given a graphic organizer to sequence the beginning, middle, and end of their story. Stories may differ in length and complexity, depending on the level of the student, and the availability of multiple choices allows for easy differentiation for more eager writers. Students may also learn more about the story of Harris Burdick and read other children’s stories online by visiting the Harris Burdick website at []==== ====Students read their completed stories aloud to peers and teachers. Students’ work may be displayed alongside the original pictures, or they may create their own illustrations for their stories in collaboration with the art teacher.====

[]
SHARON CREECH Submitted by Susan Allen

Sharon Creech is a Newbury Medal winning author of children and young adult fiction who has written seventeen novels and three picture books. Sharon grew up in Ohio and has always enjoyed reading writing and telling stories. Many of her stories grew out of her childhood experience. She has often reported that she grew up “in a big noisy family in a Cleveland suburb, with hordes of relatives telling stories around the kitchen table. Here I learned to exaggerate and embellish, because if you didn’t, your story was drowned out by someone else’s more exciting one.” Her novel __Absolutely Normal Chaos__ is said to be somewhat of a fictionalized version of her childhood. Sharon was an active child who liked to play outdoors, and outdoor scenes appear often in her books stories such as in __Chasing Redbird__ and __Walk Two Moons,__ two of her better known novels. Long family car trip vacations are a fond memory of her childhood and were the inspiration for her novel __Walk Two Moons.__ Sharon always loved to read and write but she did not always plan to be a professional writer when she grew up. On her website she writes:  “ When I was young, I wanted to be many things when I grew up: a painter, an ice skater, a singer, a teacher, and a reporter. It soon became apparent that I had little drawing talent, very limited tolerance for falling on ice, and absolutely no ability to stay on key while singing. I also soon learned that I would make a terrible reporter because when I didn't like the facts, I changed them .”  However, her love of reading, and of good stories led naturally to wanting to write. She credits many of her teachers for encouraging her to write “I had some really good teachers who praised me when I needed praise, encouraged me when I needed encouragement, and helped me to recognize that I could use words. They gave me self confidence about using words.” Before she wrote her first novel, Creech’s job choices included teaching literature. For several years after graduate school, Creech taught American and English literature in both England and Switzerland. <span style="display: block; font-family: 'Bookman Old Style',serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 0.5in;">In 1980, Sharon’s father suffered a stroke and lost his ability to speak. This had a deep impact on Sharon. As she writes “Think of all those words locked up for six years, because his mind could neither accept nor deliver words.” (A month after his death she wrote her first novel and has not stopped writing since. She feels there was a connection between her father’s death and her jump into realizing her goal of becoming an author; “I had been confronted with the dark wall of mortality; we don’t have endless time to follow our dream; but it might also be that I felt obligated to use the words that my father could not.” In __Pleasing the Ghost__, 9 year old Dennis is visited by the ghost of his Uncle Arvie (Sharon’s father was named Arval), who had suffered a stroke which left him speech impaired. Through his garbled language Dennis tries to complete three wishes that Arvie asks of him. Inspirations from real life such as this are common in Sharon’s writings. <span style="display: block; font-family: 'Bookman Old Style',serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 0.5in;">The majority of Sharon Creech’s novels are classified as Contemporary Realistic Fiction. There are exceptions, however such as __Pleasing the Ghost__ and __The Unfinished Angel__. Many of her stories have certain elements of fantasy and spiritual imagery. <span style="display: block; line-height: 200%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: 'Bookman Old Style','serif'; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;">The themes of Sharon Creech’s collection vary greatly. Many of the novels have a serious theme in them such as death, loss, trust and abandonment. These themes are presented with compassion, and often humor is used to soften the seriousness of the theme. As in many cotemporary realistic fiction novels, a young reader who might be experiencing some of the issues in her stories can find comfort. <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;">As <span style="font-family: 'Bookman Old Style','serif'; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;"> Sharon herself writes “ And maybe that is what I am trying to do in each book I write. Offer readers little moments that are more pleasing to their ears, eyes, minds. Moments which might replace other more drab or hurtful ones they encounter in the real world.” <span style="display: block; font-family: 'Bookman Old Style',serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 0.5in;">With the exception of __Love that Dog__ and __Hate that Cat__ which are written in verse, most of Creech’s novels are written in narrative form. In many instances she writes just as how the character would talk which bring life to her characters and make the books fun to read. <span style="background-color: white; display: block; line-height: 200%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: 'Bookman Old Style','serif';">Although Sharon’s life experiences influence her writing, she finds it hard to describe exactly how she comes up with the exact ideas for her stories. In an interview on Scholastic.com she reported. “Many readers ask me where I get my ideas. This is probably the hardest question to answer, because a book contains hundreds, maybe thousands, of ideas, squirming and changing and evolving as I write. I don't know the story before I begin. I only have a vague image in my mind of a character and a place. Then I write in order to find out what the story is. I want to know why the character is in this place and what is happening now, what happened before, and what will happen later <span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 11.5pt; line-height: 200%;">. “ <span style="background-color: white; display: block; font-family: 'Bookman Old Style',serif; font-size: 11.5pt; line-height: 200%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 0.5in;">Many things make Sharno Creech’s work unique. She is considered both a Children and Young Adult author so her books cover a wide age range from about third grade ad up. She also has written three picture books so you could say there is something for everyone! <span style="background-color: white; display: block; font-family: 'Bookman Old Style',serif; font-size: 11.5pt; line-height: 200%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 0.5in;">Sharon has won many awards for her writing. __Walk Two Moons__ won the Newbury medal which at first came as a shock to her. She has also won the Children’s Choice award for __Bloomability__, Parent’s Choice Award for __The Wanderer__, YAYLSA Young Adults Choice Award for __Absolutely Normal Chaos__, and the Carnegie Medal for __Ruby Holler__. Pretty good for someone who thought she might be an ice skater when she grew up! <span style="background-color: white; display: block; font-family: 'Bookman Old Style',serif; font-size: 11.5pt; line-height: 200%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 0.5in;">Many people have asked Sharon Creech for her advice on becoming an author. She advises “ Read a lot. Read anything and everything you want to read. All of that will fall into sort of a well that you will use when you write a story. Then write anything you want to. Write poetry, drama, science fiction, or humor. That way you will find out what really interests. Clearly this is advice from her own experience when you consider the range of topics she has written about.

__<span style="font-family: 'Bookman Old Style','serif'; font-size: 11.5pt; line-height: 200%;">WORKS OF SHARON CREECH __ <span style="font-family: 'Bookman Old Style','serif'; font-size: 12pt;">1 // [|Absolutely Normal Chaos] 1990// //<span style="color: windowtext; font-family: 'Bookman Old Style','serif'; font-size: 12pt;">[|Walk Two Moons] //<span style="font-family: 'Bookman Old Style','serif'; font-size: 12pt;">1994  //__<span style="font-family: 'Bookman Old Style','serif'; font-size: 12pt;">Pleasing the Ghost __//<span style="font-family: 'Bookman Old Style','serif'; font-size: 12pt;">1996  //<span style="color: windowtext; font-family: 'Bookman Old Style','serif'; font-size: 12pt;">[|Chasing Redbird] //<span style="font-family: 'Bookman Old Style','serif'; font-size: 12pt;">1997  //<span style="color: windowtext; font-family: 'Bookman Old Style','serif'; font-size: 12pt;">[|Bloomability] //<span style="font-family: 'Bookman Old Style','serif'; font-size: 12pt;">1997  //__<span style="font-family: 'Bookman Old Style','serif'; font-size: 12pt;">Fishing in the Air __// <span style="font-family: 'Bookman Old Style','serif'; font-size: 12pt;">2000  //<span style="color: windowtext; font-family: 'Bookman Old Style','serif'; font-size: 12pt;">[|The Wanderer] //<span style="font-family: 'Bookman Old Style','serif'; font-size: 12pt;">2001  //<span style="color: windowtext; font-family: 'Bookman Old Style','serif'; font-size: 12pt;">[|Love That Dog] //<span style="font-family: 'Bookman Old Style','serif'; font-size: 12pt;">2001  //__<span style="font-family: 'Bookman Old Style','serif'; font-size: 12pt;">A Fine, Fine School __//<span style="font-family: 'Bookman Old Style','serif'; font-size: 12pt;">2001  //<span style="color: windowtext; font-family: 'Bookman Old Style','serif'; font-size: 12pt;">[|Ruby Holler] //<span style="font-family: 'Bookman Old Style','serif'; font-size: 12pt;">2002  //__<span style="font-family: 'Bookman Old Style','serif'; font-size: 12pt;">Granny Torrelli Makes Soup __//<span style="font-family: 'Bookman Old Style','serif'; font-size: 12pt;">2003  //<span style="color: windowtext; font-family: 'Bookman Old Style','serif'; font-size: 12pt;">[|Heartbeat] //<span style="font-family: 'Bookman Old Style','serif'; font-size: 12pt;">2004  //<span style="color: windowtext; font-family: 'Bookman Old Style','serif'; font-size: 12pt;">[|Replay] //<span style="font-family: 'Bookman Old Style','serif'; font-size: 12pt;">2005  //<span style="font-family: 'Bookman Old Style','serif'; font-size: 12pt;">Who's That Baby //<span style="font-family: 'Bookman Old Style','serif'; font-size: 12pt;">2006  //<span style="font-family: 'Bookman Old Style','serif'; font-size: 12pt;">The Castle Corona //<span style="font-family: 'Bookman Old Style','serif'; font-size: 12pt;"> 2007  //<span style="color: windowtext; font-family: 'Bookman Old Style','serif'; font-size: 12pt;">[|Hate That Cat] //<span style="font-family: 'Bookman Old Style','serif'; font-size: 12pt;">2008  //<span style="font-family: 'Bookman Old Style','serif'; font-size: 12pt;">The Unfinished Angel //<span style="font-family: 'Bookman Old Style','serif'; font-size: 12pt;">2009

__<span style="font-family: 'Bookman Old Style','serif'; font-size: 11.5pt; line-height: 200%;">TEACHING WITH SHARON CREECH NOVELS __ <span style="background-color: white; display: block; font-family: 'Bookman Old Style',serif; font-size: 11.5pt; line-height: 200%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: justify;">Sharon Creech makes an excellent subject for an Author Study for upper elementary students due to the range of her work. Several of her books involve children keeping a journal which can be an excellent jumping off point to engage students in creative writing. She is an inspiration to the student creative writing process as she encourages students to write in any genre or format, and is her writing serves as an example that anything can be a good story!

__<span style="font-family: 'Bookman Old Style','serif'; font-size: 11.5pt; line-height: 200%;">SUGGESTED ACTIVITIES __ __<span style="font-family: 'Bookman Old Style','serif'; font-size: 11.5pt; line-height: 200%;">Activity 1: __ <span style="background-color: white; display: block; font-family: 'Bookman Old Style',serif; font-size: 11.5pt; line-height: 200%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: justify;">Library Media Specialist will create a display of Sharon Creech novels. Students will read two Sharon Creech books, one aloud as a class and one on their own. Final project will be to discuss similarities/differences between a main character in each of the novels and complete a character comparison. Students can present their character study in a number of formats: drawing and labeling the two characters, Venn Diagram, written report.

<span style="background-color: white; display: block; line-height: 200%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: justify;">__<span style="font-family: 'Bookman Old Style','serif'; font-size: 11.5pt; line-height: 200%;">Activity 2: __ <span style="background-color: white; display: block; font-family: 'Bookman Old Style',serif; font-size: 11.5pt; line-height: 200%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: justify;">Students will keep a journal for one month. Students will choose one journal entry to use to write a fictionalized short story. Students can make as many name changes, scene changes and exaggerations as they wish. Finished products will be displayed in the “We Are All Authors” section of the Library Media Center.

__<span style="font-family: 'Bookman Old Style','serif'; font-size: 11.5pt; line-height: 200%;">SOURCES CITED __ <span style="background-color: white; display: block; font-family: 'Bookman Old Style',serif; font-size: 11.5pt; line-height: 200%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: justify;">Creech, Sharon, __Biography Today: Author Series__, Volume 5. Omnigraphics, 1999

<span style="background-color: white; display: block; font-family: 'Bookman Old Style',serif; font-size: 11.5pt; line-height: 200%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: justify;">Creech Sharon, __Authors and Artists for Young Adults__, Volume 21. Gale 1997 <span style="background-color: white; display: block; font-family: 'Bookman Old Style',serif; font-size: 11.5pt; line-height: 200%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: justify;">[] <span style="background-color: white; display: block; font-family: 'Bookman Old Style',serif; font-size: 11.5pt; line-height: 200%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: justify;">[|http://Scholastic.com] <span style="background-color: white; display: block; font-family: 'Bookman Old Style',serif; font-size: 11.5pt; line-height: 200%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: justify;">[]

Author Study: Tomie De Paola By Kailin Fenn

**BIOGRAPHY for Children**: Tomie De Paola is a children’s book author who has known he wanted to be a writer and an artist since he was four years old! His parents were very supportive of him because they wanted him to happy. They even let him draw all over the walls of his new house at 26 Fairmont Avenue when it had just been built! (The painters came and over it later, though.) His family and teachers also told him that he could only get better if he practiced his art, so he practiced and practiced and practiced! He even wrote a book called __The Art Lesson,__ about the first art teacher to truly inspire him. He has written and illustrated over 200 books for children, many of them based on stories from his own life and childhood. Tomie DePaola had a childhood like many of yours, but he can make his stories truly come alive with his words and pictures. He writes both picture books and chapter books, but his most famous book is probably __Strega Nona__. This book is about an old Italian grandmother who knows spells to help the townsfolk. One spell she uses makes pasta come out of her big pot, but one day, a boy named Big Anthony hears her spell and tries it out on his own. The pasta keeps growing and growing but he can’t stop it! What he doesn’t know is that he missed hearing the end of her spell! Soon the whole town is flooded with pasta! This particular book is not about Tomie DePaola’s own memories, but like many of his other books, comes from his imagination, though some of the inspiration comes from his own Italian grandmother who was from Fall River, Massachusetts. Though Mr. DePaola grew up in Meriden, Connecticut, he now lives in New Hampshire and does most of his artwork in a barn on his property. He loves dogs and owns several of them! He also loves to cook, dance and sing. He is always drawing or writing something new or working on re-releasing new editions of older books. One last interesting fact about Tomie DePaola is that he is also my second cousin, though I have never had the pleasure of meeting him. When I was growing up, my aunt used to bring me all of his books; one of them is even inscribed to her! My aunt knew many of the characters in Mr. DePaola’s books and speaks of them to this day.


 * BACKGROUND information not addressed by introduction to children**: Tomie DePaola has written over 200 books. His most well- known picture books are __Strega Nona (__and other books from this series), __The Art Lesson__, __Nana Upstairs and Nana Downstairs__, and __Tom.__ His most well known chapter books are from the 26 Fairmount Avenue series. I believe the autobiographical books most exemplify Tomie DePaola’s work, as family is the heart of many of his books. These include the three mentioned above, the 26 Fairmount Avenue Series, as well as __Now One Foot, Now the Other__, and __The Baby Sister__. Sometimes he tells stories from his childhood in the third person, thereby placing them in the fiction picture book category, though once one has read enough of Mr. DePaola’s books, one begins to recognize all of the characters as being from his own family. The other side of Mr. DePaola is his more fanciful side, that of __Strega Nona__, __Big Anthony and the Magic Ring__, and his __Tomie DePaola’s__ __Mother Goose__. Therefore, he also writes fantasy book and fairy tales. Finally, he has written books like __My First Halloween__ and __My First Thanksgiving__ which are essentially informational books in picture book format. These are full of great information accompanied by his usual warm and adorable illustrations. I find him unique because he is both an author and an illustrator and I’ve always felt his books have a great deal of heart. As you can see above, he is also quite versatile. Both his illustrations and the stories he tells can be quite moving and tender and there is an element of innocence to his books that also appeals to me. His illustrative style is so characteristic and unique that you can recognize it immediately.


 * LESSON:** As a lesson, I think I would focus on the autobiographical books he has written. I would read them __Tom__, __The Baby Sister__, __Now One Foot, Now the Other__, __Nana Upstairs and Nana Downstairs__, and certain chapters from __26 Fairmount Avenue__ to a class of 3rd graders. We could talk about how he often chooses a family member to focus on, or several, and writes about it from his point of view. Some students might have a hard time with __Nana Upstairs and Nana Downstairs__ because Tomie’s great-grandmother passes away. This is a good opportunity to explore how Tomie DePaola spends most of the book remembering the fun times he had with her and will no doubt engender a great number of raised hands with fun grandparent or great-grandparent stories. I think it’d be great to work with a classroom teacher on an autobiographical or memoir writing unit. A couple of the books mentioned above are written in the third person and working with the classroom teacher, the LMS could model how the students can write stories about their own lives in the third person as well. This creates a little distance so that students could tell stories that are very meaningful to them. However, if the LMS is not working with a classroom teacher, this author study could still focus on biography/autobiography. Students could create their own small picture books (blank books can be made by the LMS before the lesson) over several class periods based on stories from their lives and the LMS could begin each class with another Tomie DePaola book or excerpt as a model. After their own picture storybooks have been completed, students can spend a period sharing them with one another. They all enjoy telling their own stories in class but going through the actual publishing process can help them understand that they too could be author’s someday. I think Tomie DePaola’s books illustrate this perfectly.

<span style="display: block; line-height: 200%; margin-left: 0.5in; text-align: center; text-indent: -0.5in;"> Works Cited DePaola, Tomie. //The Art Lesson//. NY: G.P. Putnam’s Sons, 1989. N. pag. Print. - - -. //The Baby Sister//. NY: G.P. Putnam’s Sons, 1996. N. pag. Print. - - -. //The Baby Sister//. NY: G.P. Putnam’s Sons, 1996. N. pag. Print. - - -. //Big Anthony and The Magic Ring//. NY: G.P. Putnam’s Sons, 1979. N. pag. Print. - - -. //My First Halloween//. NY: G.P. Putnam’s Sons, 1991. N. pag. Print. - - -. //My First Thanksgiving//. NY: G.P. Putnam’s Sons, 1992. N. pag. Print. - - -. //Nana Upstairs, Nana Downstairs//. NY: G.P. Putnam’s Sons, 1973. N. pag. Print. - - -. //Now One Foot, Now The Other//. NY: G.P. Putnam’s Sons, 1981. N. pag. Print. - - -. //Strega Nona//. NY: Prentice Hall, 1975. N. pag. Print. - - -. //Tom//. NY: Putnam Juvenile, 1993. N. pag. Print. - - -. //Tomie DePaola’s Mother Goose//. NY: G.P. Putnam’s Sons, 1985. N. pag. Print. - - -. //26 Fairmount Avenue//. NY: G.P. Putnam’s Sons, 1999. Print.
 * Sources**
 * (The rest I just got from my Aunt Sheila.)**

__ Deborah Caudill __ <span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;">**__ Author Study- Leo Lionni __**

<span style="background: none repeat scroll 0% 0% white; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">Leo Lionni was born in Watergraafsmeer, Amsterdam on May 5, 1910. In his autobiography, written eighty-seven years later, he remembers his birth:

<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial,sans-serif;">//<span style="color: black; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">"It had been a hectic, scary day, but, in retrospect, a good one. . . . Two fives—my hands. Ten, my fingers. I would be making things." //

<span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: Arial,sans-serif;">And oh, what things he made. His list of works include paintings, sculptures, collages, drawings, mosaics, designs, posters, advertisements, and forty children’s books. He has become known as one of the twentieth century’s most innovative artist and designer. <span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial,sans-serif;">His family was a close one. Leo’s father, Louis, was a Sephardic Jew whose ancestors had fled the Spanish inquisition. Louis had worked in the Dutch diamond industry but when Leo was five, he became an accountant. His mother, Elizabeth, came from a Dutch Christian family and was an opera singer. They filled his life with art and music. As an only child, Leo spent hours in his attic room. //<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-style: normal;">In fact, Leo’s bedroom was filled with cages which were home to live birds and mice, and aquariums of snails, caterpillars, frogs, and fish which would indeed become the characters in his children’s fables. He kept boxes of shells and hung leaves, feathers, and dried flowers. //  //<span style="color: black; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-style: normal;">Leo’s uncle Piet was an architect and artist and he gave Leo his first drawing lessons. //<span style="color: black; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';"> On Saturday afternoons, he would go to the Rijksmuseum of Art with his sketchpad. This opportunity to sketch and the art lessons available as part of his elementary school curriculum, he learned to observe and remember what he saw.

//<span style="color: black; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">“I don’t need to consult nature books to copy the shapes, colors, and textures of insects and reptiles, rodents and birds, pebbles and seashells. I simply copy them from the image that were // //<span style="color: black; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">stored away in my memory.” //

<span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: Arial,sans-serif;">Leo was also exposed to many young artists of the early twentieth century. His uncle Willem collected artwork and it was stored at Leo’s house while he would travel. This gave Leo a chance to study the art more closely. A Chagall that hung outside of Leo’s room inspired him and he later claimed that the painting was “the secret birthplace of all the stories I ever wrote, painted, or imagined.” He describes the painting as “a happy canvas of cheerful colors that seemed to flutter like ribbons in an icy wind.

//<span style="color: black; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">“When I was asked what I wanted to be when I grew up, the answer was always, without hesitation, "An artist."” //

<span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: Arial,sans-serif;">Leo’s parents moved to America in 1922. His father wanted to find a better job and his mother was hoping for a career in American opera. Leo was twelve years old and went to live with his step grandfather and grandmother in Brussels. He would often visit his aunt Mies who had a large modern art collection of six Picassos among other world famous artists. Leo enjoyed his visits.

<span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: Arial,sans-serif;">After two years, Leo left Brussels to live with his parents in Philadelphia and attended school for one year before a job promotion sent the family to Genoa, Italy. Leo could already speak Dutch, German, French, and English. Now Leo would have to learn Italian as he began high school in Genoa. It wasn’t long before Leo had a crush on girl a girl named Adda Maffi. Later, he would fall in love and marry Adda’s younger sister, Nora.

<span style="background: none repeat scroll 0% 0% white; color: black; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">Leo and Nora were married in 1931 and two years later, their son, Mannie. During this time, Leo painted and became a highly respected artist. His second son, Paolo, was born in 1938. These were the unsettled times before the outbreak of World War II, a period that was unsafe for Jews in Europe. In 1939, Leo left Nora and his two sons for New York and got hired by an advertising firm. Once Nora and the boys’ visas were granted, they set sail to join Leo. This was just days before Italy declared war. <span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: Arial,sans-serif;">Leo was highly successful in advertising and created ads for many of the company’s largest accounts such as Chrysler and Ford. He made the slogan “Never underestimate the power of a woman” which was used by the //<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">Ladies’ Home Journal // in their ads. He later became the art director of //Fortune// magazine and work on //<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">Time/Life // projects, including a design for //<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">Sports Illustrated // and the Museum of Modern Art’s famous catalog //<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">The Family of Man //. He went on to be awarded many prestigious awards but all this was not enough for Leo and he realized that he wanted to concentrate on his artwork.

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">In 1959, on his fiftieth birthday, and with a still booming career, Leo retired. Soon afterwards he was traveling with his grandchildren, Pippo and Annie, from Grand Central Station to his home in Greenwich, Connecticut. When the two youngsters began acting up, he said, "I’ll tell you a story." He pulled out of his briefcase an advance copy of Life and began tearing out pages of the magazine, and from them, small round pieces of various colors.

//<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">“I put my briefcase on my knees to make a table and in a deep voice said, "This is Little Blue, and this is Little Yellow," as I placed the round pieces of colored paper onto the leather stage.” //

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">The children and the other train passengers were fascinated and when they got home, Leo helped them create a book of the story. The next night a friend who was a children’s book editor came to dinner, saw the little book and wanted to publish it. He did and Little Blue and Little Yellow was in the bookstores in 1959. And so began a career as an author and illustrator.

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Leo and Nora eventually moved to Italy where they lived in an old stone farmhouse. Most of his <span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"> children’s books were <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">created here. But he loved NY and would live half the year there. He died in Italy on October 11, 1999. He was eighty-nine years old. Leo had always seen beauty in everyday life and he put all that beauty into the pages of his books that will surely live on.

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Leo Lionni gave the world of forty children’s picture books, four of which received the Caldecott Honor award. His stories amuse, educate, and inspire. Many of his stories are fables with a lesson to be learned about values or behavior. His illustrations are an exciting mix of painting, collage, and paper cuttings <span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">.

<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 14pt;">**__ Activities Using the books of Leo Lionni __** <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">A LMS can use any of Leo Lionni's books to help children to deal with the many emotions they have in life and how to handle conflict. Since the stories are fables, readings can be extended by having the students write their own fables using some of the lessons they learned in the books of Leo Lionni.

<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 12pt; font-weight: normal; line-height: 115%;">__ Language Arts __ <span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 12pt; font-weight: normal; line-height: 115%;">__ Grade 2 __

<span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">Materials __ : __  //Little Blue and Little Yellow// by Leo Leonni//,// writing paper, paints, sponges,

<span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">Procedure: · <span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Tell the students that you are going to read Leo Lionni’s first book. Explain to the students that he wrote this book while trying to amuse his grandchildren. He created the characters with of splots of color. · <span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Read //Little Blue and Little Yellow//. · <span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Tell the children that they will be making their own book with just a few splots of color just like Leo Lionni. · <span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">The students will use the sponges to add splots to paper. As they are drying, they should look at their picture and imagine what the splots could become. · <span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">The students will write a story to go with their splots. · <span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Tell the students that they will draw more details to their picture to create and finish their story.

<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 12pt; font-weight: normal; line-height: 115%;">__ Language Arts __ <span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 12pt; font-weight: normal; line-height: 115%;">__ Grade 3 __

<span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">Materials __ : __  //Inch By Inch,// paper, pencils, rulers

<span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">Procedure:

· <span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Read //Inch By Inch.// · <span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Tell the students that they are going to do some measuring to find objects that are in the library. First they need to predict the lengths. · <span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Have the students walk around and record ten objects that they will measure and their prediction of its length. · <span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">When finished, students will take a ruler and go back to record the actual length. · <span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Students can check to see how close their predictions were.

**__ <span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;">Other Activities   __**

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 * //<span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;">Swimmy //<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 12pt;">- Students use torn paper to create a fish.
 * //<span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;">Fish Is Fish //<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 12pt;">- Students create something from the fish’s point of view, similar to the fish bird and fish people from the book.
 * //<span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;">Fredrick- //<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 12pt;">Students create a Fredrick mouse from templates. Students will add their own personalities to their mice. Students also create a background for their Fredrick and can glue their Fredrick to the background.
 * //<span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;">It's Mine //<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 12pt;"> - Students create a frog head with a curled frog tongue sticking out!

**<span style="color: black; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;">Some of Leo Lionni’s More Popular Books ** <span style="color: black; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 12pt;">Little Blue and Little Yellow 1959- <span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt;">A little blue spot and a little yellow spot are best friends, and when they hug each other they become green. Although they don’t stay green, they are changed by knowing that friends rub off on each other and color proves no boundary. <span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 12pt;">Inch By Inch 1960- <span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt;">An inchworm measures for all kinds of animals till his life is threatened and he measures himself out of sight. <span style="color: black; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 12pt;">Swimmy 1963- <span style="color: black; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt;">Separated from his family, a fish named Swimmy travels alone. When he meets a school of fish who are afraid to swim in the open, he teaches them to move together to protect themselves from predators. <span style="color: black; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 12pt;">Tico and the Golden Wings 1964- <span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt;">A wingless bird is granted his wish for a pair of golden wings. <span style="color: black; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 12pt;">Frederick 1967 <span style="color: black; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt;">- A field mouse shares dreams and memories to help his friends during long winter months. Frederick paints pictures with words showing the power of language and the importance of each member’s contribution to a group. <span style="color: black; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 12pt;">Alexander and the Wind-Up Mouse 1969- <span style="color: black; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt;">A real mouse wishes he could be a toy so that people will love him instead of chasing him away. When given a magic wish, the real mouse makes a surprising choice. <span style="color: black; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 12pt;">The Biggest House in the World 1968- <span style="color: black; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt;">A little snail learns the value of living simply when he hears the sad story off a snail who tried to have the biggest house of all. <span style="color: black; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 12pt;">Fish Is Fish 1970- <span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt;">When his friend, the tadpole, becomes a frog and leaves the pond to explore the world, the little fish decides that maybe he doesn't have to remain in the pond either. <span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 12pt;">A Flea Story 1977- <span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt;">Two friends who are fleas part ways when they discover that one wants to travel and the other does not. <span style="color: black; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 12pt;">It’s Mine! 1986- <span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt;">Three selfish frogs quarrel over who owns their pond and island, until a storm shows them how important it is to share and work together. <span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 12pt;">Nicolas, Where Have You Been? 1987- <span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt;">An unexpected stay in a bird’s nest leads a youngmouse to realize that not every bird is an enemy as he had thought <span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 12pt;">. <span style="color: black; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 12pt;">Six Crows 1988- <span style="color: black; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 9pt;">A farmer and six hungry crows scare each other away from a wheat field until a wise owl teaches them to talk it out and resolve their differences.

** Leo Lionni Booklist: ** · Little Blue and Little Yellow (1959) · Inch by Inch (1960) · On My Beach There Are Many Pebbles (1961) · Swimmy (1963) · Alphabet Tree, the (1968) · Biggest House in the World, the (1968) · Alexander and the Wind-Up Mouse (1969) · Fish is Fish (1970) · Theodore and the Talking Mushroom (1971) · Frederick (1973) · Greentail Mouse, the (1973) · Color of His Own, a (1975) · In the Rabbitgarden (1975) · Pezzettino (1975) · Tico and the Golden Wings (1975) · I Want to Stay Here! : I Want to Go There! : A Flea Story (1977) · Geraldine, the Music Mouse (1979) · Let's Make Rabbits : A Fable (1982) · Cornelius : A Fable (1983) · It's Mine! (1986)   · Nicolas, Where Have You Been? (1987)   · Six Crows : A Fable (1988) · Tillie and the Wall (1989) · Matthew's Dream (1991) · Mr. McMouse (1992) · Busy Year, a (1992) · Let's Play (1993) · Extraordinary Egg, an (1994)

<span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: Arial,sans-serif;">Works Cited <span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; letter-spacing: 1.5pt;">Hollenbeck, Kathleen. //Teaching with Favorite Leo// <span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; letter-spacing: 1.5pt;">//Lionni Books//. New York, NY: Scholastic, Inc., <span style="background: none repeat scroll 0% 0% white; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt; letter-spacing: 1.5pt;">1999. 4-6. Print. <span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; letter-spacing: 1.5pt;">Lionni, Leo. //Between Worlds: The Autobiography of Leo// <span style="background: none repeat scroll 0% 0% white; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt; letter-spacing: 1.5pt;">//Lionni//. 1st ed. New York, NY: Knopf, 1997. Print. <span style="color: black; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%; margin: 7.5pt; text-indent: -22.5pt;">Images from: //<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt; letter-spacing: 1.5pt; line-height: 115%;">100 Years of Leo Lionni //<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt; letter-spacing: 1.5pt; line-height: 115%;">. Web. 22 Oct 2010. <span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; letter-spacing: 1.5pt; line-height: 115%; margin: 7.5pt; text-indent: -22.5pt;"><http://www.randomhouse.com>.

<span style="background-color: transparent; display: block; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: medium; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"> <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">**Author Study -- Ann M. Martin**


 * Tracy Ryan-Doherty**


 * October 24, 2010**

<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Ann M. Martin was born on August 12, 1955 and grew up in Princeton, New Jersey with her younger sister, Jane, their parents, and many animals. In addition to cats, Ann’s family at various times also included hamsters, mice, turtles, guinea pigs, and fish. Ann M. Martin graduated from Smith College and became a teacher, then an editor of children’s books and is now a full-time writer.

Ann has always loved to create stories. Before Ann could write, she would dictate stories to her mother so that she could write the stories down for Ann. Ann’s favorite genre was light fantasy when she was a child and she enjoyed the <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">//Wizard of Oz// <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">//Mary Poppins// <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, and <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">//Dr. Dolittle// <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">. Ann’s favorite authors, Lewis Carroll, P. L. Travers, Hugh Lofting, Astrid Lindgren, and Roald Dahl, fostered her love of stories and inspired her to be a writer.

The ideas for Ann’s books come from a variety of sources. Some of her ideas come from personal experiences, and some come from childhood memories or feelings. She bases many of her books on current problems or worries. Sometimes ideas for her stories come from the newspaper. While all of the characters in Ann’s book are fictional, sometimes she bases the characters on real people.

Her first book, <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">//Bummer Summer// <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, was the story of a girls’ struggle to adjust to her father’s new life and was published in 1980. Ann Martin has written many novels, contributed to collections, written a picture book and a non-fiction book as well but is best known for her popular series <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">//The Baby-Sitters Club// <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">. The series, written from 1986-2000, tells the adventures of a group of middle-school students that turned their baby-sitting jobs into a successful small business. Soon after <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">//Bummer Summer// <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> was published, a Scholastic editor suggested that she write some books about a group of girls who decide to form a baby-sitting club, and <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">//The Baby-Sitters Club// <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> was born. The series was supposed to be finished after the fourth book, but the series continued finally ending with well over one hundred books comprising the series. The series is widely popular with over 180 million books in print in nineteen languages. Ann based the Mary Anne character on herself as a child and Kristy was based on Beth, Ann’s childhood friend. All of the other characters in the series are entirely fictional. Ann loosely based Stoneybrook, the setting of The Baby-Sitters Club, on Northampton, Massachusetts (where she went to college) and on Princeton, New Jersey (where she grew up). The <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">//Baby-Sitters Club// <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> had many spin-offs including <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">//Baby-Sitters Club Super Specials// <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">//Baby-Sitters Club Mystery// <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, and <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">//Baby-Sitters Little Sister Super Specials// <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">. In addition to <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">//The Baby-Sitters Club// <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> and its spin-offs, Ann M. Martin has written the <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">//California Diaries// <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">//Kids in Miss Coleman’s Class// <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, and <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">//Main Street// <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> series.

Ann M. Martin likes to read mysteries but believes that good mysteries are hard to create. She has really enjoyed her experiences writing fantasy but feels most comfortable writing realistic fiction. Ann M. Martin has written many books on her own, but has also had the opportunity to co-author <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">//P.S. Longer Letter Later// <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> and <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">//Snail Mail No More// <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> with Paula Danziger and T <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">//he Doll People// <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> series with Laura Godwin. She finds that working with others can encourage you to try something as an author that you might not have tried on her own. Working with Laura Godwin on <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">//The Doll People// <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, Ann M. Martin had her first experience writing fantasy.

Ann is a very disciplined writer. On her writing days, she is at work by eight o’clock. She starts off by answering her email and by the time it is nine, she is ready to begin writing. She writes until her dog needs to be walked. She starts writing again in the early part of the afternoon and devotes the rest of the day to answering mail and other work her editor sends her. <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The advice she offers to aspiring writers is to read. She stresses the importance of being familiar with all genres of writing. Anyone who is interested in becoming a writer should write as often as possible and keep a journal. A journal not only serves as writing practice but also as a source of story ideas. Before Ann M. Martin writes a book, she creates many outlines. She usually writes a few short paragraphs that describe the story in general. Once she has the idea for the story straight in her mind, she begins to think about the main characters and their qualities. After she has determined the qualities of each main character, she creates an outline that defines what will happen in each chapter. Sometimes Ann Martin doesn’t exactly follow the outline she created, but she always uses it a reference to guide her through her writing experience. In order to write from an animal’s point of view, Ann suggests that you should first focus on the story that you want to tell and not worry about who is telling it. First you need to decide what type of story, fantasy, adventure, etc., you want to write. If you want to write a fantasy, you need to decide if the animal will be able to talk or have other special powers. You also need to decide if you want to write in the first or third person. The animal can tell its own story, or a narrator can tell the story on the animal’s behalf.

<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Ann M. Martin works have received many awards. <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">//A Corner of the Universe// <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> was a 2003 Newbery Honor Book and a 2003 ALA Notable Children’s Book. <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">//The Doll People// <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">won a 2002 Maryland Children’s Book Award (Intermediate Category). Leo the Magnificent won a 1999 Georgia Children’s Book Award (Grades K-3) and a Pennsylvania Keystone State Reading Association Children’s Book Award. <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">//P.S. Longer Letter Later// <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> and <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">//Snail Mail No More// <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">were both named as an ALA Quick Pick for Reluctant Young Adult Readers.

Ann lives in upstate New York with her dog, Sadie, and her three cats, Gussie, Pippen and Woody. She likes to read, sew, do needlework, eat ice cream, and watch <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">//I Love Lucy// <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">; she hates to cook. As a child, Ann Martin often made her own Halloween costumes and still loves to make children’s clothes. If Ann were not a author, she would like to own a sewing store or a bookstore.

<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">**Books Written by Ann M. Martin:**
 * <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; list-style-type: disc; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">**<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">131 Baby-Sitters Club Titles **
 * <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; list-style-type: disc; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">**<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">122 Baby-Sitters Little Sisters Titles **
 * <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; list-style-type: disc; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">**<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">plus Baby-Sitters Club mysteries, super specials, and related titles **
 * <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; list-style-type: disc; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">**<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">9 Main Street Titles (tenth title is due out in 2011) **
 * <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; list-style-type: disc; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">**<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">15 California Diaries Titles **
 * <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; list-style-type: disc; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">**<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">13 Kids in Miss Coleman’s Class Titles **
 * <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; list-style-type: disc; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">**<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">[|Bummer Summer] **
 * <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; list-style-type: disc; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">**<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I[|nside Out] **
 * <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; list-style-type: disc; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">**<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">[|Stage Fright] **
 * <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; list-style-type: disc; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">**<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">[|Me and Katie (The Pest)] **
 * <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; list-style-type: disc; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">**<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">[|Missing Since Monday] **
 * <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; list-style-type: disc; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">**<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">[|With You and Without You] **
 * <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; list-style-type: disc; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">**<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">[|Punky Brewster and the Great Dog Escape] **
 * <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; list-style-type: disc; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">**<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">[|Just a Summer Romance] **
 * <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; list-style-type: disc; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">**<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">[|Slam Book] **
 * <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; list-style-type: disc; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">**<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">[|10 Kids, No Pets] **
 * <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; list-style-type: disc; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">**<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">[|Yours Turly, Shirley] **
 * <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; list-style-type: disc; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">**<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">[|Moving Day in Feather Town] **
 * <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; list-style-type: disc; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">**<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">[|Fancy Dance in Feather Town] **
 * <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; list-style-type: disc; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">**<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">[|Ma and Pa Dracula] **
 * <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; list-style-type: disc; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">**<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">[|Monster Town Fair] **
 * <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; list-style-type: disc; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">**<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">[|Eleven Kids, One Summer] **
 * <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; list-style-type: disc; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">**<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">[|Rachel Parker, Kindergarten Show-Off] **
 * <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; list-style-type: disc; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">**<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">[|Chain Letter] **
 * <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; list-style-type: disc; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">**<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">[|Free Willy: The Shark Master] **
 * <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; list-style-type: disc; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">**<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">[|The Amazing True Story of Leo the Magnificent] **
 * <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; list-style-type: disc; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">**<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">[|Girls 24/7: The Best of Best-friend Stories] **
 * <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; list-style-type: disc; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">**<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">[|Ten Kids, No Pets] **
 * <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; list-style-type: disc; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">**<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">[|Belle Teale] **
 * <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; list-style-type: disc; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">**<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">[|A Corner of the Universe] **
 * <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; list-style-type: disc; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">**<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">[|Here Today] **
 * <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; list-style-type: disc; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">**<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">[|A Dog's Life: The Autobiography of a Stray] **
 * <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; list-style-type: disc; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">**<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">[|On Christmas Eve] **
 * <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; list-style-type: disc; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">**<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">[|Everything for a Do]g **
 * <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; list-style-type: disc; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">**<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Leo the Magnificat **
 * <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; list-style-type: disc; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">**<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Seven Steps to an Award-Winning School Library Program **

<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">**Lesson: Using an Outline to Write a Story**

<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">**Standard** <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">: 19.9 Write stories that have a beginning, middle, and end and contain details of setting. <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">**Grades:** <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> 3-4 <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">**Objective:** <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">This lesson will support the Language Arts Curriculum by utilizing Ann M. Martin’s advice to young writers to construct a story that has a beginning, middle, and end.
 * Framework:** <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Massachusetts English Language Arts Curriculum Framework

<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">**Part One: Teacher Assisted Character Development and Outlining**


 * Time:** <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">1 hour
 * 1) <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; list-style-type: decimal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Students will listen as the teacher reads Ann M. Martin’s <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">//Leo the Magnificat// <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">.
 * 2) <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; list-style-type: decimal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Students, as a class, will compose a two sentence summation of the story.
 * 3) <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; list-style-type: decimal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Students, as a class, will describe the setting of the story.
 * 4) <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; list-style-type: decimal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Students, as a class, will define the main character.
 * 5) <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; list-style-type: decimal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Students, as a class, will list the characteristics of the main character which the teacher will write on the board.
 * 6) <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; list-style-type: decimal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Students, as a class and assisted by the teacher, will create an outline on the board that shows the action in the beginning, middle, and end of the story.

<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">**Part Two: Student Application**


 * Time:** <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> 2 hours
 * 1) <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; list-style-type: decimal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Students, working in groups of two, will write a two sentence description describing their idea for a story with two main characters.
 * 2) <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; list-style-type: decimal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Students, working in groups of two, will choose a setting for the story and make a list of its features.
 * 3) <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; list-style-type: decimal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Students, working in groups of two, will choose two main characters for their story and create a list for each describing their attributes.
 * 4) <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; list-style-type: decimal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Students, working in groups of two, will create an outline for a three chapter book (one chapter for the beginning, middle, and end of the story).
 * 5) <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; list-style-type: decimal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Students, working in groups of two, will use their character descriptions and outline to write a story.

<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">**Assessment:** <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> Students will be assessed based on how many of the required elements (setting, beginning, middle, and end) are present in their stories.

<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">**Sources:**

<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Bookrags: Ann M. Martin Biography <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000099; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">[|__http://www.bookrags.com/biography/ann-m-martin-aya/__]

<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Fantastic Fiction: Ann M. Martin <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000099; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">[|__http://www.fantasticfiction.co.uk/m/ann-m-martin/__]

<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">KidsReads: Ann M. Martin Bio <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000099; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">[|__http://www.kidsreads.com/authors/au-martin-ann.asp__]

<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Martin, Ann M. <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">//A Corner of the Universe// <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">. New York: Scholastic, 2002.

Martin, Ann M. The Runaway Dolls. New York: Disney Hyperion Books, 2008.

Scholastic: Ann M. Martin Biography <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000099; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 36pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">[|__http://www.scholastic.com/annmartin/about/index.htm__]

<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Scholastic: Ann M. Martin Interview Transcript: October 25, 2005 <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000099; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">[|__http://www2.scholastic.com/browse/collateral.jsp?id=1481_type=Contributor_typeId=3343__]

<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Scholastic: Ann Martin’s 11/29/06 Chat Transcript <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000099; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">[|__http://www2.scholastic.com/browse/collateral.jsp?id=10541_type=Contributor_typeId=3343__]

<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Scholastic: Ann M. Martin Interview Transcript: April 25, 2007 <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000099; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">[|__http://www2.scholastic.com/browse/collateral.jsp?id=10798_type=Contributor_typeId=3343__]

<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Scholastic:: Ann M. Martin Interview Transcript: May 16, 2007 <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000099; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 36pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">__[]__

<span style="background-color: transparent; display: block; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: medium; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"> <span style="background-color: transparent; display: block; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: medium; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"> <span style="background-color: transparent; display: block; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: medium; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"> **Author Study: Roald Dahl** by Lauren Roald Dahl is one of the most famous children’s authors. He has written sixty books, including over twenty children’s books. His many awards include the Federation of Children’s Book Groups Award, the World Fantasy Convention Lifetime Achievement Award, the New York Times Outstanding Books Award, and the Massachusetts Children’s Award. The importance of his work is evident by the many people who love his books. <span style="background-color: transparent; display: block; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: medium; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"> <span style="background-color: transparent; display: block; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: medium; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"> Even though Roald Dahl was born in 1916 and died in 1990, his books are still well-loved by many people. You may have even read some of his books or seen movies based on his books, such as //Charlie and the Chocolate Factory//, //James and the Giant Peach//, //Witches//, or //Matilda//. These books, along with //The// //B.F.G.// and //Fantastic Mr. Fox//, exemplify Roald Dahl’s work and are some of his most well known books. However, Roald Dahl has also written //George’s Marvelous Medicine//, //Danny, the Champion of the World//, the //Magic Finger//, the //Vicar of Nibbleswicke//, the //Minpins//, the //Enormous Crocodile//, the //Giraffe and the Pelly and Me//, //Gremlins//, //Esio Trot//, the //Twits//, and //Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator//. <span style="background-color: transparent; display: block; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: medium; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"> <span style="background-color: transparent; display: block; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: medium; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"> Most of his books are written in the modern fantasy genre and contain magical elements with good overcoming evil. Many of his books contain supernatural creatures, such as witches in his book, //Witches//, the giants in his book, //B.F.G.//, and the trolls in his book, //Minpins//. His books also typically include magical powers, such as Matilda’s ability to move things with her mind in the book//, Matilda//. The importance of imagination and magic in Dahl’s books is exemplified in //Minpins// when Dahl writes, “Those who don’t believe in magic will never find it” (48). In addition to modern fantasy books for children, he has also written many short story collections, autobiographies, and poetry books. <span style="background-color: transparent; display: block; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: medium; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"> Roald Dahl is famous for his humor, imagination, and his ability to write from the perspective of a child. Most of the main characters in his books are children who are the heroes in the books. His stories are exciting from the beginning to the end, and he is known to have said, “grab them by the throat with the first sentence” (//Roald//). Most of Roald Dahl’s stories are illustrated by Quinton Blake. Blake uses cartoonish illustrations to complement Dahl’s humorous writing. <span style="background-color: transparent; display: block; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: medium; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"> <span style="background-color: transparent; display: block; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: medium; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"> Roald Dahl is also famous for his inventive language, using nonsense words, such as “whizzpop” or puns (play on words), such as “human beans” (//B.F.G//.). He also uses alliteration in his stories. Alliteration is when words have the same sound at the beginning of several words. For example, the BFG says he is “brimful of buzzburgers” (//B.F.G.//). In //Matilda//, Miss Trunchbull calls Matilda a “clotted carbuncle.” Roald Dahl’s poetry is great for reading aloud because of its rhythm, rhymes, and humor. He has written several alternative versions of fairy-tales. These alternative versions are written humorously from a different perspective and include surprise endings. <span style="background-color: transparent; display: block; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: medium; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"> <span style="background-color: transparent; display: block; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: medium; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"> Roald Dahl brings characters to life with vivid descriptions and gives them symbolic names that reveal their personalities, such as Miss Trunchbull for the mean headmistress and Miss Honey for the sweet, nice teacher. He also often uses similes and metaphors in his books to bring characters to life. Similes use the words, “like” or “as”, to compare two different things. For example, the B.F.G. asks Sophie to be “still as a starfish” (//B.F.G.)// Metaphors compare two different things without using the words, “like” or “as.” For example, Bloodbottler in the //B.F.G.// “has two purple frankfurter lips.” <span style="background-color: transparent; display: block; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: medium; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"> <span style="background-color: transparent; display: block; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: medium; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"> Roald Dahl was raised in England by Norwegian parents. His mother would tell him stories about trolls and other creatures from Norwegian mythology. The giants in the //B.F.G.// and the trolls in //The Minpins// were inspired by the stories his mother told him. The character of the kind grandmother in the story, //Witches//, was based on Roald’s mother. Roald Dahl was also inspired by the heroes in books by Rudyard Kipling and Charles Dickens, and he was inspired by events from his own childhood. His autobiography, //Boy,// reveals that many of his writing ideas came from his childhood. Roald decided to write children’s stories when he began telling his own children bedtime stories. Many of his story ideas originated as bedtime stories that he would tell his own children. For example, Roald got the idea of the Big Friendly Giant using a long pipe to blow happy dreams into children’s bedroom windows when he told his children this story at bedtime. Dahl loved creating adventures for his children. Once when his children were almost asleep, Dahl pretended to be the Big Friendly Giant by blowing through a bamboo cane into his children’s window. Roald Dahl loved using his imagination to tell stories, and we can continue to enjoy his stories through his books. <span style="background-color: transparent; display: block; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: medium; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"> <span style="background-color: transparent; display: block; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: medium; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"> Roald Dahl lesson Target audience: 3rd-5th grade: The school librarian will read aloud “Concerning Mike Teavee” and “Goldilocks and the Three Bears” from //Vile Verses// to students. After reading the stories, the school librarian will point out the rhymes, alliteration, nonsense words, similes, and metaphors in the stories. Then, students will create their own alternative version of stories. Students will be encouraged to include rhymes, alliteration, nonsense words, and similes and metaphors in their stories. Finally, students will read their stories aloud to the class. Another activity: The school librarian will give each student a passage from Roald Dahl’s books that includes one of Roald Dahl’s nonsense words. Each student will write what they think the word means and create a picture of the nonsense word. Then, the students will share their picture of the nonsense word and its definition. The pictures will be displayed in the library with the sign “In Roald Dahl’s Words.”  <span style="background-color: transparent; display: block; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: medium; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"> Works Cited

Dahl, Roald. //B.F.G.// New York: Farrar, Straus, Giroux, 1982. Print. Dahl, Roald. //The Minpins//. New York: Viking, 1991. Print. Dahl, Roald. //Roald Dahl’s Revolting Rhymes.// New York: Knopf, 1982. Print. Dahl, Roald. //Vile Verses//. New York: Viking, 2005. Print. // Roald Dahl- The Official Web Site //. Roald Dahl Nominee Limited/Quentin Blake, 2010. Web. 24 October 2010.