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Laurie Ann Thompson

BE A CHANGEMAKER

Just keep writing, just keep writing…

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Wow, have I neglect­ed this blog in recent weeks (okay, months), or what? I’ve been fever­ish­ly focus­ing on knock­ing out the CHANGEMAKERS book, which also meant I was fever­ish­ly focus­ing on find­ing a method to the mad­ness of knock­ing out the CHANGEMAKERS book. I wrote a bit about my strug­gles over on the Emu’s Debuts blog.
Lindt A Touch of Sea Salt dark chocolate barThanks to the sup­port of my fel­low EMu’s fol­low­ing that post, I’ve since hit a pret­ty good stride and am feel­ing much more com­fort­able about my abil­i­ty to fin­ish the book with­out let­ting it kill me. I’ve got a dandy col­lec­tion of spread­sheets to track my progress by word count, by chap­ter, and by research. I’ve got some reward sys­tems in place (i.e. Lindt’s A Touch of Sea Salt bars).
So, things are flow­ing much more smooth­ly now with the writ­ing part, and I am thrilled that the inter­views are rolling in as well. I can’t wait to share what some of the sto­ries about what these ven­ture teams are doing! I’ve known I want­ed to write this book for years, but now that I am actu­al­ly doing it, I’m hav­ing even more fun than I thought I would. Hear­ing these teenagers talk about their ideas, their goals, their suc­cess sto­ries: WOW! It is so inspir­ing, and on so many dif­fer­ent lev­els. When­ev­er I start to think maybe I can’t do this, that this book is too ambi­tious or the dead­line is too short, I just think about what some of them have done. If they are chang­ing the world at the age of 18, or 15, or 10, sure­ly I can write one lit­tle book, right? And if my lit­tle book can help just one more teen pull off even a tiny frac­tion of what these kids are already accom­plish­ing, then I know all of my efforts will have been worth it.
After the book is done, I hope I will be able to share with you here some snip­pets of the inter­views and out­takes from the pro­files I’m work­ing on, because these young peo­ple will blow you away, and in the best pos­si­ble kind of way. I hope my read­ers will be as affect­ed by learn­ing about these teens’ ven­tures as I have been.
When we watch the TV news or read the news­pa­per head­lines, it’s easy to get dis­cour­aged about the state of the world. But writ­ing this book is the com­plete oppo­site expe­ri­ence. It’s hard to get dis­cour­aged about where the world is head­ing when there are so many young peo­ple like the ones I am writ­ing about out there.
And now, back to work! Please for­give me if I’m a lit­tle qui­et for the next few months. 😉

Another book deal: a how-to guide for teen changemakers!

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Europa Park Roller Coaster Up
Although we recent­ly spent a week in Dis­ney­land, last week was def­i­nite­ly the big­ger roller coast­er ride for me: I had surgery on Tues­day, then my sec­ond book deal was announced on Thurs­day! There’s noth­ing like good pub­lish­ing news to cheer up a writer who is feel­ing down, and noth­ing like a book sell­ing on proposal–with a short deadline–to make her want to recov­er as quick­ly as possible.
Here’s the announce­ment from Pub­lish­er’s Mar­ket­place:

Lau­rie Thomp­son’s CHANGEMAKERS, a teen hand­book for social activism and how to effect change, with tips, instruc­tion, and prac­ti­cal case stud­ies, to Nicole Geiger at Simon Pulse, by Ammi-Joan Paque­tte at Erin Mur­phy Lit­er­ary Agency (World English).

And here’s the fab­u­lous write-up my amaz­ing agent put up on the agency web­site:

Quick show of hands: Who here has ever dreamed of chang­ing the world? Okay, now one more: Who’s actu­al­ly sat down and put togeth­er a spe­cif­ic plan for chang­ing the world, com­plete with guide­lines, prac­ti­cal tips, and hands-on expe­ri­ence from those who have gone before and actu­al­ly done it?
Let me intro­duce you to Lau­rie Thomp­son. Last year, Lau­rie’s first pic­ture book was signed on by Schwartz & Wade. This week, Lau­rie has accept­ed a pub­li­ca­tion offer for her newest book, a non-fic­tion man­u­al for teens and pre­teens, ten­ta­tive­ly titled CHANGEMAKERS. Focus­ing on the expe­ri­ences of teens and young peo­ple who have made a con­crete dif­fer­ence in their own neigh­bor­hoods, coun­tries, and across the world, CHANGEMAKERS will be the defin­i­tive guide for kids who want to make a dif­fer­ence but don’t know how to get start­ed. And I have a feel­ing the rest of us non-kids will enjoy it too!
This book was enthu­si­as­ti­cal­ly signed on by Nicole Geiger at Beyond Words Publishing/Simon Pulse, and is slat­ed for pub­li­ca­tion in Fall 2014. Huge con­grat­u­la­tions, Laurie!

Even though this is my sec­ond book deal, it looks like it will actu­al­ly be my pub­lish­ing debut. My first book, a pic­ture book, isn’t sched­uled to launch until spring 2015, but this one is sched­uled to come out in fall 2014. Since this one sold on pro­pos­al, how­ev­er, I have a lot of work to do in a short amount of time if that is going to hap­pen. So, please for­give me if I’m even qui­eter than usu­al for the next few months.  As soon as I am recov­ered enough, I’ll be back on my tread­mill pound­ing out words!

Review: We’ve Got a Job

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We’ve Got a Job
by Cyn­thia Levinson
Peachtree Pub­lish­ers, Feb­ru­ary 1, 2012
176 pages
Ages: 10 and up
Oscar Wilde sup­pos­ed­ly said, “Any fool can make his­to­ry, but it takes genius to write it.” While I don’t nec­es­sar­i­ly agree with the first part, the sec­ond part absolute­ly rings true. After all, how do you make a sto­ry com­pelling when every­one already knows how it ends? Cyn­thia Levin­son has proven her genius here, because she accom­plish­es that and so much more in WE’VE GOT A JOB.
By anchor­ing the events sur­round­ing the 1963 Birm­ing­ham Children’s March in the per­son­al nar­ra­tives of four of its direct par­tic­i­pants, Levin­son puts read­ers on the ground in Birm­ing­ham. We may know the final out­come, but we have no idea how we’re ever going to get there, and this day-by-day account of the incre­men­tal progress—and setbacks—will keep read­ers turn­ing the pages to find out what hap­pened next. This is a non­fic­tion book with as much dra­ma and pac­ing as THE HUNGER GAMES. I lit­er­al­ly couldn’t put it down, except for when I became too teary-eyed to con­tin­ue read­ing, which hap­pened often.
There is so much to love about this book, but I think my favorite thing about it is how Levin­son human­izes every­one involved. It’s not as much a move­ment or an event as it is indi­vid­u­als, each with his or her own moti­va­tions, work­ing with or against each oth­er. I loved read­ing that even the revered lead­ers (for both sides of the issue) were hard­ly ever in agree­ment. Every­one involved was tak­ing a chance, a risk, a guess as to what was going to work—or not. They were all fight­ing for what they believed in, each in his or her own unique way. Noth­ing was sim­ple. Noth­ing was clear.
I whole­heart­ed­ly think this book should be in every library, in every class­room, and in every home in Amer­i­ca for its his­to­ry as well as for its mes­sage for the future. Buy it, read it, rec­om­mend it, share it.
The book also includes a table of con­tents, author’s note, time­line, map, acknowl­edge­ments, exten­sive source notes, bib­li­og­ra­phy (rec­om­mend­ed resources), pho­to cred­its, and a detailed index. Levin­son also has addi­tion­al info, les­son plans, dis­cus­sion ques­tions, cur­ricu­lum guides, and more on her web­site.

 
To check out the rest of today’s roundup of non­fic­tion books for kids, head on over to this week’s Non­fic­tion Mon­day host, Wendie’s Wan­der­ings!
(Dis­claimer: I received an advance read­er copy (ARC) of this book from Peachtree Pub­lish­ers in exchange for my hon­est review, and it was so good I pre-ordered my own pub­lished hard­cov­er. I received no mon­e­tary com­pen­sa­tion. All opin­ions expressed here are mine and mine alone.)

International Day of the Girl: Stand Up for Girls!

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Today, I took part in the Ral­ly for Girls’ Edu­ca­tion by stand­ing up for girls! Did you know that two thirds of the world’s illit­er­ate peo­ple are women? Don’t you think every girl has the right to read and write words that will change her, and to write and tell sto­ries to change the world? I do! Here’s me stand­ing up at noon today:

To find out more, vis­it Lit­World’s web page, and be sure to read this com­pelling arti­cle from the Huff­in­g­ton Post:

It has been demon­strat­ed over and over again that wom­en’s wis­dom feeds fam­i­lies and com­mu­ni­ties and envi­ron­ments, mak­ing them health­i­er, stronger, more resilient and less ten­den­tious. Edu­cat­ed women live longer, earn more and have health­i­er, bet­ter edu­cat­ed chil­dren. It seems a no-brain­er: invest­ing in women and women-to-be is one of the most effi­cient expen­di­tures possible. 

Soccer, Walk to End Alzheimer’s, and TEDxRedmond 2011

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soccer image Tomor­row is a big day. First, my son will be hav­ing his first soc­cer game of the sea­son with his brand new team. Go Eagles!
   
At the same time, I’ll be walk­ing with my daugh­ter in the Walk to End Alzheimer’s. (If you’re so inclined, there’s still time to sup­port me here!) We’re hon­ored and excit­ed to be a part of Team Teri Atte­ber­ry and look­ing for­ward to an inspi­ra­tional morn­ing in the late sum­mer sun.
   
TEDxRedmond logo Then, we’re rush­ing back across the water to go to TEDxRed­mond all after­noon. I love lis­ten­ing to the real TED talks on http://www.ted.com/. But imag­ine my sur­prise and delight when I learned about TEDxRedmond–a TEDx event orga­nized by youth, for youth–right in my back­yard! How had I not heard about this before? I don’t know, but I can’t wait to attend this year.

From their web page:

After speak­ing at the annu­al TED con­fer­ence in Long Beach, CA, in 2010, 12-year-old teacher, speak­er, and author Ado­ra Svi­tak want­ed to bring a TED-like expe­ri­ence home to Red­mond, WA.

And she’s done it! I’m thrilled to be one of the sup­port­ers of this year’s TEDxRed­mond, and I’m look­ing for­ward to meet­ing this young dynamo. Check out her TED speech:



Here’s a list of all the speak­ers join­ing Ado­ra at TEDxRed­mond 2011. I can’t wait to hear what these young peo­ple have to say!

Final­ly, the whole fam­i­ly is meet­ing up with friends, includ­ing one vis­it­ing from afar for the first time in years, for din­ner. It’s hard to imag­ine a fuller, or more reward­ing, day. I just hope I have some ener­gy left to tell you about it afterwards!

Meet young social entrepreneur Riley Carney!

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Riley Carney

I first met Riley Car­ney on Twit­ter. As you can see in her pro­file, she’s 18, has pub­lished 3 books (so far), and found­ed a non­prof­it orga­ni­za­tion for children’s lit­er­a­cy. Pret­ty amaz­ing, huh? I knew right away she was some­body I want­ed to fol­low! Loads of oth­er peo­ple do, too, so today we’re get­ting togeth­er to throw a SURPRISE Twit­ter grad­u­a­tion par­ty for her! Every­body say,

“Hap­py Grad­u­a­tion, Riley!”

Riley Carney
In just four years, Riley’s non­prof­it has raised over $100,000 and built three schools and water purifi­ca­tion sys­tems for vil­lages in Africa along with a children’s lit­er­a­cy cen­ter in a woman’s shel­ter in Col­orado. Cur­rent­ly, they are focus­ing on their Bookin’It pro­gram, which is putting books into class­rooms in low-lit­er­a­cy/un­der­fund­ed schools in the Unit­ed States. Riley donates some of the pro­ceeds from her own books to the orga­ni­za­tion, also.
A true hero, Riley has won a num­ber of  nation­al and local awards, includ­ing T.A. Bar­ron’s Young Heroes Award Dis­tin­guished Final­ist, Pru­den­tial Spir­it of Com­mu­ni­ty Nation­al Award for Col­orado, NBC Col­orado Affil­i­ate 9News Kids Who Care, and Skip­ping Stones Mul­ti­cul­tur­al Mag­a­zine Top Youth Writer Award, to name a few.
Despite being a pub­lished author, founder and CEO of Break­ing the Chain, in-demand speak­er, not to men­tion busy high-school senior, Riley was kind enough to answer some inter­view ques­tions to tell us a lit­tle more about her­self and her lit­er­a­cy orga­ni­za­tion, which fights right in with the youth empow­er­ment theme of this blog!
Lau­rie: Hi Riley! Thanks so much for play­ing along and shar­ing your wis­dom and vision with us. First, how old were you when you launched your non­prof­it? And how did you decide what prob­lem or issue to address?
Riley: When I was four­teen years old, I learned some star­tling sta­tis­tics about children’s lit­er­a­cy: over 120 mil­lion chil­dren around the world are denied access to a basic edu­ca­tion; 1.3 mil­lion chil­dren drop out of school each year in the U.S.; and 1 in every 2 chil­dren lives in pover­ty. I real­ized that there was a direct cor­re­la­tion between illit­er­a­cy and pover­ty. I want­ed to do some­thing to change those sta­tis­tics, so I decid­ed to start my own non­prof­it orga­ni­za­tion, Break­ing the Chain, to break the chains of illit­er­a­cy and pover­ty through education.
Lau­rie: Who or what helped you fig­ure out how to do it?
Riley: When I first start­ed Break­ing the Chain, my ini­tial goal was to build a school in Kenya. I part­nered with an orga­ni­za­tion called Free the Chil­dren so that I could raise the mon­ey and they would build the school. They had many help­ful fundrais­ing tips that gave me ideas of how to raise mon­ey. My fam­i­ly and friends were very sup­port­ive from the very begin­ning, and I used my school as a way to raise aware­ness and funds.
Lau­rie: What was the eas­i­est aspect of launch­ing and/or main­tain­ing it?
Riley: The eas­i­est aspect was stay­ing pas­sion­ate about the cause. I deliv­er books to many class­rooms in high-need mid­dle and ele­men­tary schools and I often have the oppor­tu­ni­ty to speak with the stu­dents who receive the books. It is impos­si­ble to ade­quate­ly con­vey the joy and excite­ment expressed by the chil­dren when they see the books. As soon as their teacher allows them to, they run to the box­es and grab as many books as they can to take back to their desks. They smile, they laugh, they dance around. It’s bet­ter than a birth­day par­ty. Often, they’ll ask if they can take a book home to keep. Many have nev­er owned a book of their own. The need and the impact are so tan­gi­ble, and the expe­ri­ence only dri­ves me to do as much as I can to help.
Lau­rie: What was the most chal­leng­ing aspect of launch­ing and/or main­tain­ing it?
Riley: Fundrais­ing can be dif­fi­cult and frus­trat­ing, espe­cial­ly dur­ing a reces­sion. It’s dif­fi­cult to secure a con­stant source of funds and it’s often chal­leng­ing to find new ways of fundrais­ing after oth­er meth­ods fall short.
Lau­rie: What keeps you going when things get tough?
Riley: I just remind myself of the chil­dren who we are help­ing and the impact that our efforts have on their lives. There is noth­ing more valu­able that teach­ing a child how to read and the gift of edu­ca­tion is a right that should be afford­ed to every­one. The abil­i­ty to read pro­found­ly affects every minute of our lives; lit­er­a­cy is the sin­gle-most impor­tant com­po­nent of becom­ing a func­tion­ing adult. That knowl­edge pro­pels me forward.
Lau­rie: What do you feel like you, per­son­al­ly, have gained from being involved with it? What have you learned that you’ll take with you to your next phase of your life?
Riley: Cre­at­ing Break­ing the Chain, main­tain­ing our pro­grams, and inter­act­ing with the kids has been an amaz­ing and for­ma­tive expe­ri­ence. I have learned so much about myself and I have been awed by the incred­i­ble opti­mism and enthu­si­asm of chil­dren in even the most dif­fi­cult of sit­u­a­tions. I am so grate­ful that I have had this expe­ri­ence and had the hon­or of meet­ing so many fan­tas­tic kids.
Lau­rie: What would you say to oth­er teens con­sid­er­ing launch­ing their own non­prof­it? What do you wish some­one had said to you when you were just start­ing out?
Riley: You’re nev­er too young to make a dif­fer­ence. When I first start­ed my non­prof­it, I was ter­ri­fied that I would fail, that I would embar­rass myself in front of my peers, but I real­ized that the only way I could make a dif­fer­ence in my own life or in some­one else’s life is if I faced that fear of failure.
Lau­rie: Thank you, Riley! I think your answers remind us all, youth and adults alike, to face that fear of fail­ure and make a dif­fer­ence in what­ev­er areas we feel pas­sion­ate about. I know we’ll be hear­ing much more from you in the years to come, and I’m so look­ing for­ward to it. Con­grat­u­la­tions on your grad­u­a­tion, Riley, and best wish­es for a stel­lar future!

If you’d like to sup­port Break­ing the Chain (a 501(c)(3) orga­ni­za­tion), you can sends funds via Pay­Pal to
breakingthechain@linkbylink.org,
or mail dona­tions to:
Break­ing the Chain
P.O. Box 100644
Den­ver, CO  80250–0644

I did!

Do good by reading good YA: WHAT YOU WISH FOR

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I just pre-ordered my copy of WHAT YOU WISH FOR: A BOOK FOR DARFUR, and I am so look­ing for­ward to read­ing it.
Com­ing from Pen­guin Group’s G.P. Putnam’s Sons in Sep­tem­ber, 2011, the book is a col­lec­tion of YA poet­ry and short sto­ries writ­ten by var­i­ous authors, includ­ing Cor­nelia Funke, Meg Cabot, R. L. Stine, John Green, Ann M. Mar­tin, Alexan­der McCall Smith, Cyn­thia Voigt, Karen Hesse, Joyce Car­ol Oates, Nik­ki Gio­van­ni, Jane Yolen, Nate Pow­ell, Gary Soto, Jeanne DuPrau, Fran­cis­co X. Stork, Mar­i­lyn Nel­son, Nao­mi Shi­hab Nye, and Sofia Quin­tero.
Prof­its from the book sales will be donat­ed to the Unit­ed Nations High Com­mis­sion for Refugees (UNHCR), an orga­ni­za­tion build­ing libraries in Dar­fur refugee camps in Chad.
Read more here or pre-order your own copy here.

Sunday Scribblings #194: People Who Dared

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The prompt over at Sun­day Scrib­blings today is dare. My first instinct was to write a spon­ta­neous short fic­tion vignette—that is what prompts are all about, right? But, while I con­sid­er writ­ing fic­tion a use­ful prac­tice to improve my skills as well as a reward­ing cre­ative endeav­or in its own right, my real pas­sion is non­fic­tion. So, today I’ll share the true sto­ries oft­wo peo­ple who dared.

First up: Flo­rence Nightin­gale. We all know her as the “lady with the lamp,” the hero­ic nurse who tend­ed British sol­diers dur­ing the Crimean War. But her sto­ry is so much more inter­est­ing than that. Even as a child, she nursed her dolls, pets, and even the local poor. As a young woman from a wealthy fam­i­ly, she did not have to work. She was attrac­tive, and had many mar­riage pro­pos­als, one from a man she tru­ly loved. Yet she turned them all down to do the work she felt com­pelled to do. In Vic­to­ri­an Eng­land, nurs­es were con­sid­ered to be among the low­est lev­els of soci­ety: igno­rant, dirty, and often drunk. Flo­rence ded­i­cat­ed her life to chang­ing this per­cep­tion, not only car­ing for her patients with ten­der ded­i­ca­tion, but also by lob­by­ing for and mak­ing sys­tem-wide improve­ments in hygiene, admin­is­tra­tion and record-keep­ing, sta­tis­ti­cal analy­sis, report­ing, and hos­pi­tal con­struc­tion. She dared to defy the expec­ta­tions of every­one around her, and ini­ti­at­ed a new order in health care.

Sec­ond: Emmanuel Ofo­su Yeboah. He was born in 1977 in Ghana, West Africa, with only one leg. At the time, dis­abil­i­ty was con­sid­ered to be a curse. His father left, and friends urged his moth­er to kill him. She did not, and instead raised him the same as able-bod­ied chil­dren, doing chores and going to school. As a young man, he was dis­turbed by how many dis­abled peo­ple were forced to beg to sur­vive. He decid­ed to show his coun­try that peo­ple with dis­abil­i­ties could do use­ful things. In 2001, he dared to ped­al a bicy­cle almost 400 miles across Ghana, with one leg. He drew the atten­tion of the peo­ple, the media, and the gov­ern­ment offi­cials. In 2006, Ghana’s Par­lia­ment final­ly passed the Per­sons with Dis­abil­i­ty bill, which stat­ed that peo­ple with phys­i­cal dis­abil­i­ties are enti­tled to all of the same rights as the rest of the country’s cit­i­zens. “I want to spread a mes­sage to change per­cep­tions,” he said, “and the only way to do that is to lead by example.”

These are two of the true sto­ries that give me the courage I need to con­tin­ue to dare to make my own mark on the world by writ­ing about and shar­ing them with oth­ers. How about you—will you dare to make a dif­fer­ence in the world? Come on—I dare you!

The Siemens We Can Change the World Challenge

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The Siemens We Can Change the World Chal­lenge gives stu­dents in grades K‑8 the oppor­tu­ni­ty, tools and inspi­ra­tion to become agents of change. From their website:

The Siemens Foun­da­tion, Dis­cov­ery Edu­ca­tion, and the Nation­al Sci­ence Teach­ers Asso­ci­a­tion invite you to join the only Chal­lenge of its kind that empow­ers stu­dents to cre­ate solu­tions to envi­ron­men­tal prob­lems in their own back­yards, and to share their results with stu­dents nation­wide. They’ll learn. They’ll take action. And their ideas may well end up chang­ing the world.

Siemens We Can Change The World Challenge
This looks like a well-fund­ed, well-orga­nized way for kids to get involved in ser­vice learn­ing and social entre­pre­neur­ship. Find out more and get busy–the con­test ends March 15th, 2010!

#SWF09: The role of education in social entrepreneurship

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This arti­cle over at the Social Enter­prise mag has some great quotes about cre­at­ing young change-makers:

Para­phras­ing Bill Dray­ton, founder of Ashoka: “Young peo­ple should be edu­cat­ed about social entre­pre­neur­ship from the age of 12 if there is to be a next gen­er­a­tion of change mak­ers… The key time to inspire the social entre­pre­neurs of tomor­row is between the ages of 12 and 20.”

12? In my opin­ion we can, and should, start a lot soon­er, but I total­ly agree that we must pur­pose­ful­ly edu­cate our youth–ALL youth–about how to cre­ate the changes they want to see in the world. That is why my cur­rent work-in-progress is a how-to book for teenagers who want to save the world, aimed direct­ly at read­ers 12 and up.

“In one mes­sage of how edu­ca­tion­al insti­tutes should tack­le busi­ness teach­ing, [Jim] Austin [pro­fes­sor at the Havard Busi­ness School] said: ‘Empow­er the stu­dents, then get out the way. They will do incred­i­ble things.’ ”

YES! This is true for any indi­vid­ual or group, as we’ve already seen with oth­er great move­ments of empow­er­ment like civ­il rights and fem­i­nism. The next major empow­er­ment move­ment is that of the world’s youth, and I know it’s already here and grow­ing fast. I’m hop­ing my book will help it along in a big way, because I, for one, want to see even more incred­i­ble things.

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