Curious City Featured on Lifelines Podcast
Curious City was honored to have our projects I’m Your Neighbor Books and the Welcoming Library featured on Ann Braden and Saadia Faruqi’s podcast Lifelines: Books That Bridge the Divide. EXPLORE AND LISTEN. Curious about the engagement tools we mentioned? Have a peek at our: Educators Guide for NOWHERE BOY Readers Theater for I’M NEW HERE and SOMEONE NEW Share...
Read MoreTrolls, Grumpy Gators and Unassigned Reading
A chill is in the air and the summer days of lounging with a chapter book in hand appear to be over for the year…WAIT not so fast! You can incorporate elective reading in your day-to-day DESPITE homework, soccer, and this and that. Create a habit of 20 minutes a day when the WHOLE family is reading something they WANT to read. No judgement, no reading levels, just ADVENTURE… Here are some recommendations from Curious City’s radio appearance on Green Mountain Mornings available as a podcast here … ________________________________________________________________...
Read MoreCurious City on the Brown Bookshelf
Honored to be invited by author/illustrator Don Tate to write about “Making Your Own Market” for The Brown Bookshelf, a website “designed to push awareness of the myriad of African American voices writing for young readers.” “For me, children’s book marketing on the Brown Bookshelf or off has never been about social media, press, coverage, or other perils of “self-promotion.” For me, marketing has always been about storytelling and discovery. The best marketing finds ways to: retell a story beyond the framework of the book engage readers deeper in the story...
Read MoreJustice, Equality, Rights…Forever
As Women’s History Month opens, I was curious to open the document The Declaration of the Rights of Women signed on the 100th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence. I was quite taken with the last line: We ask justice, we ask equality, we ask that all the civil and political rights that belong to citizens of the United States, be guaranteed to us and our daughters forever. —The Declaration of the Rights of Women How do we pass on the concepts of justice, equality, and civil and political rights to our daughters, sons, and students? (Is not children’s literature (always)...
Read MoreValentine to Kid Lit
As the day to celebrate romantic love approaches, we ask what Kid Lit character holds your heart in a way only a Valentine should? Who would you run away with? Listen to Podcast of our conversation on Kid Lit Love with Chris Lenois of WKVT’s Live & Local here. In a poll of children’s book writers, librarians, and readers on Facebook, the Classics came into play. Would you also… Go down the river with Huck Finn? Go into that dark cave with Tom Sawyer? Go up into the Alps with Heidi? Take the plunge with Mr. Darcy? Go into Boo Radley’s yard with Scout? Leave the...
Read MoreReading for Empathy, Reading for Distance
Looking back on 2013, what were the news stories that you could not get enough of? What stories did you need to avert your eyes from? Sometimes the veil of story allows us – as adult and child readers – to more deeply understand and bear the news of the day. In fact, in a study released by the journal Science, it was found that reading literary fiction makes us more empathetic, socially perceptive, and emotionally intelligent than reading non-fiction or the news. Read more in the New York Times article, “For Better Social Skills, Scientists Recommend a Little...
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