A few weeks ago I had the pleasure of being the special guest at an incredible event, Stratos Product Development’s annual company open house. The company is mentioned on page 138 of my book Be a Changemaker, because they were one of the original funders of Edward Jiang’s StudentRND venture, which I profiled in chapter 12. As you can see, this
THE SCRAPS BOOK: NOTES FROM A COLORFUL LIFE written and illustrated by Lois Ehlert published by Beach Lane Books/Simon & Schuster, March 2014 72 pages There have been several picture-book autobiographies of children’s book authors and illustrators over the past few years. Sadly, most have left me feeling just a little underwhelmed. While I personally enjoyed them, I felt like they were
Quoted in BE A CHANGEMAKER, chapter 1, taken from a speech the President gave to his supporters in Chicago on February 5, 2008.
I had a wonderful time presenting with Mary Cronk Farrell at the 2014 WLMA Conference last Saturday! The title of our talk was “Fostering 21st Century Learning with Today’s Nonfiction,” and we delivered it to a room overflowing with teacher/librarians (aren’t t/l’s the best!?) who were looking for new ideas and book recommendations. Our presentation discussed how much of the
My publisher for BE A CHANGEMAKER, Beyond Words, does an awesome weekly series of live video webinars with their authors. Here’s the recording made from my spot on September 10, 2014. Check it out: maybe you’ll discover your passion and figure out how you can be a changemaker!
Two of the worst possible things that could happen to a book event in Seattle happened on the day of the Be a Changemaker launch party: one of our major bridges was closed for construction, and the sun was shining! Still, an amazing number of ultra-dedicated friends and intrepid fans braved the traffic nightmare and willingly (or perhaps begrudgingly) sacrificed
I’ve been surprised and honored to be included on a plethora of fantastic blogs as part of a blog tour to help launch Be a Changemaker into the world. There are guest posts written by me on a variety of topics related to the book, as well as interviews, reviews, quotes, and, yes–book giveaways! Be sure to check out all
One of the most rewarding experiences of being a debut author has been participating on the Emu’s Debuts group blog (for clients of Erin Murphy Literary Agency who are in between deal and publication). Last week, my fabulous friends and fellow Emus threw me THE BEST LAUNCH PARTY EVER to celebrate the upcoming release of BE A CHANGEMAKER! (They went a
To celebrate the United Nations’ International Youth Day, I wrote a guest blog for the Beyond Words blog explaining why I wrote Be a Changemaker specifically for young readers. Here’s an excerpt: We know that young people have always been at the forefront of societal change. Adolescence is a time when people begin to question and critique the morals and
Emmanuel Ofosu Yeboah, the subject of my upcoming picture-book biography, EMMANUEL’S DREAM, is an athlete who was born in Ghana, West Africa, with a deformed leg. As a young man, he wanted to change the way disabled people were treated in Ghana, so he rode a bicycle nearly 400 miles all around his country to prove that being disabled doesn’t