Making Readers...and Writers

How do you grow avid readers and aspiring writers? Take them to really cool events with local authors. Tonight the boys' school hosted an All Star Reading Night where they invited six local authors to come, read from their books, talk about what inspires them, and sign books to newly won fans. We, naturally, walked out with an armload full of new books. Riley was quite taken with Belle Yang and had her sign his copy of Forget Sorrow.



Laura Joy Rennert read from her book "Royal Princess Academy, Dragon Dreams", illustrated by French artist Melanie Florian.







Murlie Hanson is a recognized award-winning author who promotes education and creative thinking. She has lived in Norway, Bolivia, and in both the least and most populated states in America. She has been a Fulbright Scholar, a reporter, a columnist, and wrote a legal rights handbook for the disabled. She practices trust law in California and is writing a legal fiction novel. Winner of the MOM'S CHOICE AWARDS GOLD MEDAL for Excellence in Children's Picture Books.


Anne Ylvisaker is the author of the middle grade novels Button Down, The Luck of the Buttons, Little Klein, and Dear Papa, all from Candlewick Press, as well as an award winning board book, and nineteen nonfiction books for young readers. In 2005 Anne was awarded the McKnight Artist Fellowship/Loft Award in Children’s Literature. She incorporates old family photos into her books. 

And, lastly, Brad Herzog and Luke Herzog read to the group. Dylan waited in line to get a copy of Luke's Dragon Valley.



What an amazing evening!

Unplugged

Besides seeing great new places, one of the things I relish about our annual summer camping trip: being unplugged.

I love the immediacy of email, but I think that it has taken away the thrill of getting something in the mailbox addressed to you. Seeing the different colored stamps, feeling the different textures of papers and cards...what fun!

When I was a kid, because my dad was military, I kept in touch with friends with letters. Yes, it took weeks to get a response, especially when those friends scattered overseas at times, but there is something exciting about seeing an envelope or card with your name on it.

So one of the things I do is bring address labels for a few of the boys' close friends. And wherever we stop, they pick out some postcards and write notes to their pals. They can reflect and share something about their day's adventures. Over the years my requirements grow. I think the first year, I let them dictate, I wrote the card, and they signed it. Then they had to write one sentence, then two.

This year I told them that they had to write at least three sentences on the postcard. Dylan objected and said that he was younger than Riley and should only have to write two sentences. I was firm. Then he just wrote bigger and told me that three sentences don't fit on the postcard. Rotten kid.

Writing and reading shouldn't be luxuries, but with the mayhem of everyday life, it feels like it sometimes. Because there is not laptop beckoning with a blog to write or emails to check. I always pack at least one book for every two days we're gone. I may not get through them all; it's nice to have options.

This trip, I read The Lost City of Z: A Tale of Deadly Obsession in the Amazon by David Grann and thumbed through several books about chocolate in preparation for my class next trimester.

And when we weren't reading and writing, we were hiking, splashing, playing hide and seek among downed timbers, making bows and arrows, singing, laughing, and enjoying lots and lots of unplugged family time!