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Laurie Ann Thompson

Laurie Ann Thompson

Need a gift idea for a teen in your life?

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Be a Changemaker gift wrapped

Last Fri­day, I had the great plea­sure of par­tic­i­pat­ing in the Annu­al Hol­i­day & Ben­e­fit Par­ty at Park­place Books, a love­ly inde­pen­dent book­store in Kirk­land, WA. The event was fes­tive and well attend­ed, and I had the chance to talk with some of my favorite local authors as well as many of the cus­tomers who came in to see us.
I also got to sign a lot of books: it seems Be a Change­mak­er is a hit for hol­i­day gift giving!
Be a Changemaker gift wrapped
For the teens (and adults) on your list, you can buy BE A CHANGEMAKER at your local inde­pen­dent book­store (find them on IndieBound), or online at Amazon.com, Barnes & Noble, or Powell’s.
And, if you need more book­ish gift ideas for teens this hol­i­day sea­son, check out this post from the Teen Librar­i­an’s Tool­box on how to buy books for the teens (or any­one, real­ly) on your shop­ping list.
Hap­py holidays!

Bow image originally from Joanne, on Flickr: “02/05/2014: Brown bow tied onto package”.

 

Quote: “You are the changemakers and the change.”

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Monique Coleman quote

Monique Coleman quote
Pho­to Cred­it, David Niblack, Imagebase.net

Quot­ed in BE A CHANGEMAKER, chap­ter 1, from a speech giv­en at We Day Seat­tle on March 27, 2013, attend­ed by the author. Vis­it Monique Cole­man’s offi­cial web page for more infor­ma­tion about her speak­ing and human­i­tar­i­an activities.

EMMANUEL’S DREAM is available for pre-order!

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EMMANUEL'S DREAM cover

EMMANUEL'S DREAM cover
 
My first pic­ture book, EMMANUEL’S DREAM, will be pub­lished in Jan­u­ary, but it’s avail­able for pre-order now!
Here’s the descrip­tion from the pub­lish­er’s web page:

Emmanuel Ofo­su Yeboah’s inspir­ing true story—which was turned into a film, Emmanuel’s Gift, nar­rat­ed by Oprah Winfrey—is noth­ing short of remarkable.
Born in Ghana, West Africa, with one deformed leg, he was dis­missed by most people—but not by his moth­er, who taught him to reach for his dreams. As a boy, Emmanuel hopped to school more than two miles each way, learned to play soc­cer, left home at age thir­teen to pro­vide for his fam­i­ly, and even­tu­al­ly, became a cyclist. He rode an aston­ish­ing four hun­dred miles across Ghana in 2001, spread­ing his pow­er­ful mes­sage: dis­abil­i­ty is not inabil­i­ty. Today, Emmanuel con­tin­ues to work on behalf of the disabled.
Thomp­son’s lyri­cal prose and Quall­s’s bold col­lage illus­tra­tions offer a pow­er­ful cel­e­bra­tion of tri­umph­ing over adversity.

To order your copy from an inde­pen­dent book­seller, vis­it Secret Gar­den Book­shop (if you add your per­son­al­iza­tion request in the com­ments sec­tion, I’ll sign it for you!) or check out IndieBound for a local book­store near you. Of course, you can also find it on Amazon.com or BN.com.
And, of course, you can always add it to your Goodreads shelf:

Emmanuel's Dream: The True Story of Emmanuel Ofosu Yeboah


Changemakers in the classroom

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I’ve been huge­ly grat­i­fied by the respons­es I’ve got­ten from teach­ers around the coun­try about using BE A CHANGEMAKER: HOW TO START SOMETHING THAT MATTERS in their class­rooms. The very first of these was a love­ly 8th-grade ELA teacher from a pri­vate Catholic school in Louisiana. She reached out to me before the book was even released, and let me tell you, her enthu­si­asm was a much-appre­ci­at­ed sooth­ing balm for all of my pre-release jitters!
She is using the book for her stu­dents’ “20% projects,” an idea adapt­ed from the cor­po­rate world where com­pa­nies allow employ­ees to spend 20% of their time work­ing on a pet project that inter­ests them. They’ll be using the books through­out the school year to choose self-direct­ed projects and bring them to life. Isn’t that excit­ing? I sure think so!

8th graders in class 1 with their new books
8th graders in class 1 with their new books

As part of her cur­ricu­lum, she was able to pur­chase a copy of the book for each and every one of the stu­dents, and she even got them per­son­al­ized! It was a huge pile of books for me to sign, and such an incred­i­ble hon­or for me to write each stu­den­t’s name in his or her own book.
8th graders in class 1 with their new books
8th graders in class 2 with their new books

These pic­tures are from the day she hand­ed the books out to all of the stu­dents. I hope you enjoy see­ing them as much as I do!
The stu­dents also watched a video I made for them to help kick off their project. I post­ed about that video ear­li­er this week. Check it out here if you missed it.
I can’t wait to hear about these stu­dents’ ideas and fol­low their progress through­out the school year. I’ll post updates here as I get them so you can fol­low along, too.
I love hear­ing about young peo­ple using the book, whether on their own or through a class or oth­er orga­ni­za­tion, so if you’re using (or think­ing about using) BE A CHANGEMAKER on your own or with your stu­dents, scouts, chil­dren, youth group, etc., please let me know! My email address is at the bot­tom of this page, or you can reach out on my Face­book author page or on Twit­ter.

Be a Changemaker introduction video

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To my delight, I’ve had sev­er­al teach­ers con­tact me about speak­ing to their stu­dents at the kick­off of a unit using Be a Change­mak­er in their class­rooms. While I’m always thrilled to do a quick, live Skype call if the tim­ing and per­mis­sions work out, so far it’s been eas­i­er for every­one if there’s a pre-made video that they can just have pre­loaded and ready to go.
So, here’s an infor­mal “hel­lo” video that any­one can use to intro­duce me and my how-to book for teens, Be a Change­mak­er. Enjoy!

Author event: the Stratos Oktoberfest open house

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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.
Stratos Oktoberfest banner
As you can see, this year’s theme was Okto­ber­fest, and they went all out with dec­o­ra­tions, food, bev­er­ages, and even a pol­ka band!
polka band
It’s too bad I did­n’t get a chance to dance, but I was hav­ing too much fun talk­ing with Stratos employ­ees and guests.
photo of author talking with attendee
I was warm­ly wel­comed, and folks seemed pret­ty excit­ed about Be a Change­mak­er, too.
attendees with Be a Changemaker
At one point, a storm picked up and we had to (quick­ly!) move every­thing inside, but that just made it eas­i­er to mingle.
mingling with attendees inside
And as atten­dees left for the evening, there were piles and piles of books for them to take home, all of which I signed and, if desired, per­son­al­ized (yes, my hand was tired!).
stacks of Be a Changemaker books
What a won­der­ful evening! I left feel­ing thor­ough­ly impressed with every­one I had talked to–and with the com­pa­ny itself for bring­ing them all together.
I’m ever so grate­ful to Stratos Prod­uct Devel­op­ment for includ­ing me. They’re the per­fect exam­ple of a for-prof­it busi­ness that is com­mit­ted to doing good in the world, and it was such an hon­or to participate.
Click here to check out all of the great pho­tos from the event, and here to see what this total­ly awe­some com­pa­ny is all about.

Review: THE SCRAPS BOOK by Lois Ehlert

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THE SCRAPS BOOK cover

THE SCRAPS BOOK cover
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 aimed more at their long-time adult fans than at con­tem­po­rary child read­ers. While I, as an adult, was able to appre­ci­ate the rich con­text and inter­est­ing per­son­al his­to­ries, I won­dered if chil­dren would be able to relate to the sto­ries and find direct­ly rel­e­vant mean­ing with­in the pages. So, although I myself am a fan of Lois Ehlert, I’ll admit I was a bit skep­ti­cal when I picked up THE SCRAPS BOOK. Boy was I in for a delight­ful surprise!
Despite the high page count, there is noth­ing in this book that feels the least bit self-indul­gent. Every page seems lov­ing­ly designed to encour­age and instruct young artists. (And aren’t we all artists when we’re young? Per­haps with this book, more of us will remain so.) Through­out, Ehlert gen­er­ous­ly shares her inspi­ra­tions, her process­es, her notes and jour­nals, even her mess­es and mis­takes, giv­ing read­ers insights into her books as well as her life as an artist.THE SCRAPS BOOK excerpt
I think this is tru­ly a book peo­ple of all ages can enjoy, and the world is def­i­nite­ly a bet­ter place for hav­ing THE SCRAPS BOOK in it.
Facts First! Nonfiction Monday

(Disclaimer: Review copy was checked out from my local library.)

2014 Washington Library Media Association (WLMA) Conference

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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.

Mary sharing BRAVE GIRL
Mary shar­ing BRAVE GIRL

Our pre­sen­ta­tion dis­cussed how much of the non­fic­tion being pub­lished now is so much more than “just” its sub­ject. There are inno­v­a­tive for­mats, emo­tion­al­ly-charged sto­ries, cross-dis­ci­pline explo­rations, etc. A just-the-facts approach sim­ply won’t be pub­lished these days, as kids have easy access to infor­ma­tion in a vari­ety of for­mats AND are faced with so many options com­pet­ing for their atten­tion. This makes non­fic­tion a par­tic­u­lar­ly com­pelling choice for stu­dents in and out of the class­room or library setting.
Mary presentingMary and I took turns shar­ing some of our favorite recent non­fic­tion titles–including Mary’s PURE GRIT and my BE A CHANGEMAKER and EMMANUEL’S DREAM– and how we felt they could be used in the library or class­room to achieve mul­ti­ple learn­ing goals simul­ta­ne­ous­ly, includ­ing cov­er­ing core cur­ricu­lum sub­jects, social-emo­tion­al learn­ing, prob­lem solv­ing and crit­i­cal think­ing, cre­ativ­i­ty and inno­va­tion, infor­ma­tion and media lit­er­a­cy, and tech­nol­o­gy skills. We got the librar­i­ans talk­ing to us and to each oth­er, and we even had them try out some exer­cis­es they might use with their stu­dents. (Let me tell you, those librar­i­ans can write, too!)
Since sev­er­al atten­dees asked for our slides, here is the deck we used in our talk, and, since we ran out of hand­outs due to the over­whelm­ing atten­dance, here is the hand­out that we passed out with the list of books referenced.
Speaker goodie cup
Speak­er good­ie cup!
Thanks so much for hav­ing us, WLMA! Thanks so much for the book love and ded­i­ca­tion you put into your work each and every day, teacher/librarians! And, thanks, Mary, for being such a great co-pre­sen­ter and mak­ing every­thing easy!
My dog, Prim
My dog, Prim, catch­ing up on some lap time
Of course, no mat­ter how much fun I have speak­ing at con­fer­ences like this, it’s always good to be home again.

YOU Can Be a Changemaker: the video webinar!

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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!

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