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Laurie Ann Thompson

Laurie Ann Thompson

Review: In Search of Sasquatch

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In Search of Sasquatch
by Kel­ly Mil­ner Halls
Houghton Mif­flin Books for Chil­dren (Octo­ber 25, 1011)
64 pages, ages 9 and up
When I was a kid, one of my favorite books was BIGFOOT: MAN, MONSTER, OR MYTH? by Car­rie Carmichael (Rain­tree, 1977). I’ve always been an ani­mal lover, and I loved the pos­si­bil­i­ty that there was one (or more?) out there clever enough to remain a mys­tery to us. I lived in rur­al north­ern Wis­con­sin and spent a lot of time in the woods, but, sad­ly, nev­er saw any Sasquatch signs.
When my son told me he thought it’d be cool to be a cryp­to­zo­ol­o­gist (nice!), I knew I had to get him this book. It did­n’t dis­ap­point. He’s read it sev­er­al times cov­er to cov­er, and I’m lov­ing the facts and crit­i­cal think­ing skills he’s demon­strat­ing as a result.
My first thought when I opened the book was how beau­ti­ful it is. The full-bleed for­est spread with the quotes over­lay­ing the trees pulls you right into the world of the sasquatch from the very first page turn (and the final one, as well). The beau­ty con­tin­ues with beau­ti­ful pho­tog­ra­phy, ele­gant illus­tra­tions, and well-done lay­out and design throughout.
Halls com­bines var­i­ous myths and leg­ends with expert opin­ions and eye­wit­ness accounts to weave a clev­er­ly craft­ed and com­pelling case for the exis­tence of sasquatch. She does­n’t come right out and tell us that it does or does­n’t exist, though. In the end, it’s up to the read­er to decide if they’ve been con­vinced or not.
This is a great book to hand to any kid with an inter­est in cryp­tids or oth­er mys­ter­ies, and ani­mal lovers and bud­ding young sci­en­tists will also enjoy it.
FUN FACT: “Accord­ing to experts at the Big­foot Field Researchers Orga­ni­za­tion (BFRO), cred­i­ble wit­ness­es have report­ed see­ing Sasquatch in every state in the Unit­ed States of Amer­i­ca except Hawaii, as well as most Cana­di­an provinces.”
There is a ded­i­ca­tion, table of con­tents, addi­tion­al resources, pho­to and illus­tra­tion cred­its, bib­li­og­ra­phy and source notes, glos­sary, and index.
SIDE NOTE: When asked her opin­ion of the book, my daugh­ter answered, “I LOVED how she crammed so many facts into this book, yet still kept it com­plete­ly inter­est­ing!” My answer: “Ahem. <cough> ‘YET STILL?’ Have I told you what I do? FACTS ARE INTERESTING!” I have failed as a parent.

This is my review for STEM Fri­day, which I’m also host­ing this week! See the com­plete roundup here.
Dis­claimer: A copy of this book was checked out from my local library for review. Thanks, King Coun­ty Library System!

Read more kids’ nonfiction in 2012!

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Facts First! Nonfiction Monday

Still try­ing to come up with some res­o­lu­tions for the new year? Or would you pre­fer hav­ing one or two that are more plea­sure than pain? Well, in the spir­it of

…I’ve got just the thing for you!

Read more non­fic­tion for kids!

There are two chal­lenges out there right now to help you do just that… and share the fruits of your labor with like-mind­ed peeps around the world.

First,  Kid Lit Fren­zy and The Non­fic­tion Dete­cetives have teamed up to offer the The Non­fic­tion Pic­ture Book Chal­lenge 2012. Their goal is to encour­age every­one to read more non­fic­tion pic­ture books this year. All you have to do is set a goal for your­self (like read­ing one non­fic­tion pic­ture book each week or each month). You can vis­it both the Kid Lit Fren­zy and The Non­fic­tion Dete­cetives blogs through­out the year for non­fic­tion reviews and give­aways, tweet about the chal­lenge using the hash­tag #nfpb2012, and add the Non-Fic­tion Pic­ture Book badge to your web site.

Non-Fiction Picture Book Challenge 2012

 

Sec­ond, Ms. Houghton’s Class chal­lenges us to read the Sib­ert Medal win­ners and hon­orees here. This has been on my to-do list for awhile, so thank you Ms. Houghton for giv­ing me that extra push. I’m in! She has the com­plete list in her post, OR you can find the offi­cial list of past win­ners here and cur­rent win­ners here. New win­ners for 2012 will be announced 1/23/2012 (search for #alay­ma on Twit­ter). You can also keep track of this chal­lenge on Twit­ter by search­ing for #nerdib­ert.

I’m doing both, along with my oth­er New Year’s Res­o­lu­tions, which are to read more adult non­fic­tion and keep bet­ter track of all of these books in a read­ing log. I hope you’ll join me!
UPDATE: I made a Google docs spread­sheet with all the info for the Sib­ert books. Feel free to down­load it from here and use it to track your progress!

What I Learned From the Cybils

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CYBILS logo

CYBILS logo
The Cybils’ Non­fic­tion Pic­ture Book pan­el for round one, which I was thrilled to be a part of this year, recent­ly fin­ished our deliberations.
The pan­elists were:

There were 87 non­fic­tion pic­ture books to read. Of those, 23 end­ed up on my “pos­si­ble con­tenders” list, and only four of those end­ed up on my “absolute­ly must fight for” list. The sev­en of us had to ulti­mate­ly agree on sev­en (or few­er) titles to send on to the round two judges. (And, I’m hap­py to report, we did it! But you’ll have to wait a few more days to find out what we chose.)
What a thought-pro­vok­ing and edu­ca­tion­al expe­ri­ence this was to go through, as both a writer and as a read­er. These smart, savvy, and opin­ion­at­ed book-lov­ing women val­i­dat­ed many of my own feel­ings about non­fic­tion for kids, and brought to light some nuances that I hadn’t real­ly thought about before, and the whole process real­ly made me think about the titles that I loved through both lens­es of the Cybils cri­te­ria: lit­er­ary mer­it AND kid appeal. It wasn’t enough to have one or the oth­er (which many titles did). Our job was to iden­ti­fy at most sev­en titles we felt were the best of both worlds. A few titles were easy shoe-ins: we agreed on those right away. The remain­ing spots were only filled after great debate, with some argu­ing for and oth­er against. The rea­sons not to include some­thing on the short list were often even more enlight­en­ing than the rea­sons to include something.
Major rea­sons why oth­er­wise deserv­ing titles got passed over:

  • Insuf­fi­cient back mat­ter. Back mat­ter can real­ly make or break a non­fic­tion book, even a pic­ture book for the youngest
    read­ers. If we, the adults, don’t trust you, the author, we’re not going to put that book into a kid’s hands. Authors and pub­lish­ers: it’s worth bud­get­ing the space for those extra pages at the back. Con­sid­er it your chance to show off your hard work and prove your exper­tise, as well as to share your pas­sion with your read­ers, adults and chil­dren alike. Sad­ly, I think insuf­fi­cient back mat­ter hurt both lit­er­ary mer­it and kid appeal on many oth­er­wise won­der­ful titles.
  • Art and design. Not being an artist myself, I was sur­prised how divi­sive this area could be. Some­times we loved the art, but didn’t feel the words were up to par. Some­times we loved the text, but reject­ed the art. Some­times we even loved both, just not togeth­er! And often, we had con­flict­ing opin­ions across the pan­el. Some­times the lay­out and design added to the oth­er ele­ments, some­times it took so much away as to knock a title out of the run­ning alto­geth­er. As an author, I’ll have no con­trol over this (gulp!), but it makes me even more aware of how impor­tant it is to find an edi­tor and a pub­lish­ing house that I can trust to get it all right.
  • Age appro­pri­ate­ness. There were sub­jects that seemed either too young or too old for the audi­ences they were writ­ten for, either too dumb­ed down or too sophis­ti­cat­ed to be appeal­ing to the intend­ed read­ers. It’s tough to strike that bal­ance of read­ing lev­el, inter­est lev­el, and rel­e­van­cy, but as an author (and illus­tra­tor), you just have to do it. I’ll be hold­ing up my own man­u­scripts to much greater scruti­ny in this area.

I want to thank each and every one of the pan­elists for a thor­ough­ly enjoy­able and eye-open­ing deci­sion-mak­ing process. I hope the round two judges are pleased with our choic­es and look for­ward to their choice for the win­ner. I don’t envy their job one bit!

Review: Bring On the Birds

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Bring On the Birds cover

Bring On the Birds
writ­ten and illus­trat­ed by Susan Stock­dale
Peachtree Pub­lish­ers (Feb­ru­ary 1, 2011)
32 pages, ages 4 and up

This is one of my favorite books of all the nom­i­na­tions in the Cybils Non­fic­tion Pic­ture Book cat­e­go­ry this year, and I just can’t get over how absolute­ly per­fect it is. The poet­ic text is a sim­ple but ele­gant rhyme with spot on rhythm and meter:

“Swoop­ing birds,
whoop­ing birds,
birds with puffy chests.
Danc­ing birds,
div­ing birds,
birds with fluffy crests.”

The illus­tra­tions are bright, clean, and not only depict the var­i­ous birds, but also place them in their appro­pri­ate habitats.
The 21 birds fea­tured run the gamut from the com­mon robin to the more exot­ic blue-foot­ed boo­by, from the great blue heron to the blue bird-of-par­adise. This book cov­ers an enor­mous diver­si­ty of life, then ends just right with what they all have in common:

“All of them have feathers,
and all are hatched from eggs.”

This is a won­der­ful intro­duc­tion to birds for the youngest read­ers. It could also be used to talk about diver­si­ty, habi­tats, and classification.
At the end of the book, Stock­dale includes a per­fect­ly brief and spot-on para­graph with infor­ma­tion about each bird pro­filed in the book. The book also includes a bibliography.
STEM Friday logo

To check out the rest of today’s roundup of books for kids about top­ics in sci­ence, tech­nol­o­gy, engi­neer­ing, and math­e­mat­ics, head on over to this week’s STEM Fri­day roundup over at Anas­ta­sia Suen’s Book­talk­ing.

(Dis­claimer: I received a copy of this book from my local library. I received no mon­e­tary com­pen­sa­tion for this review. All opin­ions expressed here are mine and mine alone.)

Review: Amazing Kitchen Chemistry

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Amazing Kitchen Chemistry cover

Amazing Kitchen Chemistry cover
Amaz­ing Kitchen Chem­istry Projects You Can Make Yourself
by Cyn­thia Light Brown (Author)
Nomad Press (May 1, 2008)
122 pages
Ages: 9–12
From the pub­lish­er’s web page:

“In Amaz­ing Kitchen Chem­istry Projects You Can Build Your­self, kids ages 9 and up will exper­i­ment with kitchen mate­ri­als to dis­cov­er chem­istry. Read­ers will learn about atoms, mol­e­cules, solids, liq­uids, gas­es, poly­mers, the peri­od­ic table, the impor­tant his­to­ry of sci­ence, and much more. Along the way, they’ll make goop, cause chem­i­cal reac­tions, and cre­ate deli­cious treats, and all of it will illus­trate impor­tant chem­istry con­cepts. Amaz­ing Kitchen Chem­istry Projects is a fun and excit­ing way for young read­ers to learn all about chem­istry and become sci­en­tists right in the kitchen.”

My son has always loved sci­ence, so we’ve gone through many books like this over the years. As a par­ent, I have to say this is my favorite one so far. Why? First, all the sup­plies and ingre­di­ents are already in my house or read­i­ly avail­able. Yay! He can pick a project and we can DO it, rather than make a shop­ping list and get back to it when I’ve col­lect­ed all the hard-to-find neces­si­ties. Sec­ond, the sci­ence con­cepts behind the projects and any spe­cial­ized vocab­u­lary words are explained in a clear, acces­si­ble way. Final­ly, the projects them­selves as well as the lay­out, fun facts, side­bars, and illus­tra­tions, are just plain FUN!
Top­ics include atoms and mol­e­cules, mix­tures, reac­tions, acids and bases, solids, liq­uids, gas­es, state changes, poly­mers, and water. Some of things you can make are a buck­y­ball, a chro­ma-col­or book­mark, an Alka-Seltzer rock­et, invis­i­ble mes­sages, crys­tals, rock can­dy, a wave tank, a Men­tos explo­sion, taffy, ice cream, oobleck, meringue cook­ies, paper, bub­ble solu­tion, and more!
I think this is a book that young sci­en­tists, as well as their par­ents and teach­ers, will appreciate.
In the inter­ests of “keep­ing it real,” though, I have to share my son’s one and only com­plaint: “It’s not even in col­or!” With so much great stuff hap­pen­ing on every page, I hon­est­ly hadn’t even noticed. He’s very visu­al, so it was a big draw­back for him. I don’t know if oth­er kids would be as sen­si­tive, and I’m sure most adults will appre­ci­ate the cost savings.
This book also includes a table of con­tents, an intro­duc­tion, a glos­sary, rec­om­mend­ed resources, and index.
FAVORITE FUN FACT: On page 18, I learned that Alfred Hitch­cock­’s The Birds was based on a real event! In 1961, birds start­ed crash­ing into hous­es in the mid­dle of the night in a coastal Cal­i­for­nia town. Peo­ple went out with flash­lights to inves­ti­gate, and the birds flew toward the lights and pecked at the peo­ple, who ran back inside for cov­er. The next day, they found the streets full of dead and con­fused birds. 26 years lat­er, sci­en­tists final­ly dis­cov­ered it was caused by a neu­ro­tox­in that can build up in sea crea­tures that eat a dan­ger­ous type of phy­to­plank­ton, and the birds–or people–that in turn eat those sea crea­tures! Who knew? 
To check out the rest of today’s roundup of books for kids about top­ics in sci­ence, tech­nol­o­gy, engi­neer­ing, and math­e­mat­ics, head on over to this week’s STEM Fri­day host, Wrapped in Foil!
STEM Friday logo
(Dis­claimer: I received this copy for free direct­ly from the pub­lish­er for review.)
 

Review: Picture Yourself Writing Poetry

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Pic­ture Your­self Writ­ing Poet­ry: Using Pho­tos to Inspire Writing
by Lau­ra Pur­die Salas
Cap­stone Press, August 2011
32 pages
Ages: 8 and up
This title is one of the Pic­ture Your­self Writ­ing ____: Using Pho­tos to Inspire Writ­ing series, and it’s quite effective—it inspired me to write! Not only does it demon­strate how one can use images to get ideas for poems, it also con­tains many spe­cif­ic, easy-to-under­stand writ­ing tips. Salas cov­ers such impor­tant top­ics as incor­po­rat­ing sen­so­ry detail, choos­ing con­crete nouns and strong verbs, char­ac­ter­i­za­tion and point of view, and struc­ture, all paired with won­der­ful examples. 
The books opens up with the line, “The best poems are mag­i­cal, minia­ture worlds.” It then shows read­ers how to cre­ate those worlds them­selves while invit­ing them to enter sev­er­al cre­at­ed by Salas.
I think this would be a great book to incor­po­rate into any poet­ry cur­ricu­lum. I would also hearti­ly rec­om­mend it to stu­dents who enjoy writ­ing… as well as to those who tend to strug­gle with it.

(Dis­claimers: I received this copy for review for free from the pub­lish­er as part of the Cybils judg­ing process. This review is my opin­ion only and does­n’t nec­es­sar­i­ly reflect the judg­ing com­mit­tee’s selections.)

The importance of play

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I have a con­fes­sion to make. I’ve nev­er been much of a jour­naler, my cre­ativ­i­ty has always been bursty, and I have nev­er in my life had any­thing resem­bling a dai­ly writ­ing habit.
But I real­ly need one.
“Need” is the right word, too. I almost wrote “should,” but that isn’t quite cor­rect. It’s 1:30 p.m., and I’ve accom­plished next to noth­ing so far today. I’ve been pro­cras­ti­nat­ing, surf­ing, orga­niz­ing, clean­ing… but not one thing that actu­al­ly gets me clos­er to my goals. I have a whole bunch of things I “should” be doing, revi­sions and research. That’s not the prob­lem. The prob­lem is more that I’m in a sort of funk, and none of those “should” tasks appeal to me right now. This slump I’m in, I think is because I’ve lost con­tact with my cre­ative self. I’ve let the inner edi­tor have too much to do, too much to say late­ly. Yes, I’ve need­ed it for the revi­sions I’ve been work­ing on, but it got too much prac­tice, while my cre­ative side withered.
I haven’t writ­ten any­thing brand new, aside from a few blog posts here, for almost six months. Blog posts are good, I guess. I get to cre­ate, write, practice–and it serves a use­ful pur­pose, too (I hope!). A nice win-win.
But, writ­ing some­thing for pub­lic con­sump­tion is not the same as freewrit­ing, prac­tice, PLAY. I’ve been read­ing HOW TO BE A WRITER by Bar­bara Baig  and the first thing she address­es is this need to free our­selves from expec­ta­tion and play with writ­ing, with­out fear of any­one else see­ing the results. I’ve been see­ing this advice show up in var­i­ous snip­pets here and there from var­i­ous wise peo­ple for the past few weeks. The uni­verse is send­ing me sig­nals, but I’ve been try­ing hard to over­look them to focus instead on the “should“s, the con­crete to-do list, the goal-ori­ent­ed approach to achiev­ing my dreams.
I’m a log­i­cal per­son. I write non­fic­tion. I make lists. I set goals, and break them down, and work towards them. This is all good and use­ful… to a point.
But some­times, the well runs dry. I need to rest. I need to read. I NEED to cre­ate. That, after all, is the end goal. So, it’s time to lis­ten to the universe.
You, dear revi­sions, will just have to wait. I’m cur­rent­ly busy with much less impor­tant things.

Review: Only the Mountains Do Not Move

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Only the Mountains Do Not Move cover

Only the Mountains Do Not Move cover
Only the Moun­tains Do Not Move: A Maa­sai Sto­ry of Cul­ture and Conservation
by Jan Reynolds
Lee & Low Books, Sep­tem­ber 01, 2011
40 pages
Grades 3–4
I’ve always been fas­ci­nat­ed by the Maa­sai, so I was pleased to see this book about their cul­ture writ­ten for chil­dren, and this book did­n’t dis­ap­point. Straight­for­ward text is com­bined with Maa­sai proverbs and beau­ti­ful pho­tog­ra­phy to give us a detailed glimpse at mod­ern-day Maa­sai life. This is a bal­anced rep­re­sen­ta­tion: Reynolds isn’t afraid to show the less pleas­ant (bit­ing bugs!) or shock­ing (drink­ing cow blood!) aspects of Maa­sai life, but she also reveals the peace and togeth­er­ness it brings. Espe­cial­ly rel­e­vant to her young read­ers is how she focus­es on what the Maa­sai boys and girls do at dif­fer­ent ages.
One pleas­ant sur­prise was how Reynolds shares with read­ers not only the his­tor­i­cal Maa­sai cul­ture, but also how the Maa­sai way of life is chang­ing due to out­side pres­sures and how they are adapt­ing to this new world, giv­ing the sto­ry con­text in the broad­er world.
I’d be remiss, how­ev­er, if I did­n’t men­tion that there were a few minor draw­backs for me. First, it both­ered me not to have pro­nun­ci­a­tion guides for the Maa words embed­ded in the text (but there is one at the end). Sec­ond, although the Maa­sai proverbs were love­ly, I want­ed more of them and to have them appear more reg­u­lar­ly through­out the text. As it is, with 10–14 pages between proverbs, they sort of sur­prised me each time and felt more like inter­rup­tions than the embell­ish­ments they should have been. Final­ly, I would have liked to get a lit­tle clos­er to the main fam­i­ly through­out the whole book. Some­times the text seems to move way out to the Maa­sai in gen­er­al for a long time, then it zooms in briefly to the main char­ac­ters, then goes right back out again. I would’ve liked more con­nec­tions to have been made between the gen­er­al way of life and the spe­cif­ic family.
On the plus side, the back mat­ter includes an author’s note, a glos­sary and pro­nun­ci­a­tion guide, a web site for more infor­ma­tion, and source notes and acknowl­edge­ments. There’s also a very inter­est­ing inter­view and book talk with the author avail­able here, which should make it ever more appeal­ing for teach­ers hop­ing to use it in the classroom.
This is a won­der­ful book for intro­duc­ing a unique and fas­ci­nat­ing African cul­ture to upper ele­men­tary students.

Lessons learned at the 2011 SCBWI WWA retreat

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I had such a great time at SCBWI West­ern Wash­ing­ton’s Week­end on the Water retreat this year. Nes­tled in a cozy lodge-style resort on the Hood Canal, 49 oth­er writ­ers and I had the priv­i­lege of learn­ing from super­stars Arthur A. Levine and Lin­da Sue Park. I want­ed to cap­ture and share just a few of the nuggets of wis­dom I gleaned from their talks, so here goes…
 
Arthur A. Levine
From Arthur:

  • First chap­ters are like first dates. You need a spark, but also must estab­lish trust if there is to be a long-term rela­tion­ship. You must choose an appro­pri­ate set­ting for the mood you wish to cre­ate. Choose the right outfit—don’t write to trends if they don’t suit you. Don’t give too much away in the beginning—keep a few sur­pris­es for lat­er. Be hon­est. Don’t rush in.
  • Think about your story’s “best self,” the most impor­tant aspect of your book and hope­ful­ly, the one you are best at. Is it char­ac­ter? Plot? Voice? Set­ting? Yes, you need them all, of course, but one prob­a­bly stands out as the key ele­ment or your best trait. Be sure to lead with that com­po­nent in the first chap­ter, both to make a good impres­sion and set the stage for what comes next.
  • Make sure your story’s “beat­ing heart” is revealed in the first chap­ter. What’s the emo­tion­al theme?
  • You can’t start writ­ing with a moral or theme in mind. Go back to the char­ac­ters and find out  why it matters.
  • Main char­ac­ters will have thoughts and feel­ings about the facts you need to present. Reveal char­ac­ter through descrip­tion to get two for one.
  • When receiv­ing feed­back, be sure to ask WHY cri­ti­quers are mak­ing their sug­ges­tions. Don’t just make the changes they pro­pose with­out under­stand­ing the real rea­sons behind them.
  • Enjoy the journey!

 
Linda Sue Park
From Lin­da Sue:

  • Young chil­dren are learn­ing about THEIR WORLD. Mid­dle-grade chil­dren are learn­ing about THE WORLD. Young-adult read­ers are learn­ing about THEMSELVES. “Read­ing is prac­tice for life.”
  • With­out show­ing the where and when of set­ting, you only reveal part of char­ac­ter. Tell read­ers how your char­ac­ters inter­act with their envi­ron­ment, not just what the envi­ron­ment is.
  • Every sen­tence should do dou­ble-duty (plot + char­ac­ter, plot + set­ting, or set­ting + char­ac­ter). Look for this dur­ing revision.
  • Try it! Instead of just think­ing about some­thing, (1st per­son POV vs. 3rd per­son, present vs. past, dif­fer­ent struc­tures and time­lines, dif­fer­ent set­tings, etc.), try it both ways and see what you like bet­ter. Don’t be afraid of wast­ing time! This is the work of writing.
  • Using present tense for what is hap­pen­ing right now is tech­ni­cal­ly incor­rect. Present tense is for things that hap­pen every day or are rou­tine. Present par­tici­ple (-ing) is for what’s hap­pen­ing right now. “I sing” vs. “I’m singing.” But it’d be awful­ly cum­ber­some to right a 1st per­son present nov­el this way!
  • Use line breaks to see the rhythm and length of sen­tences in a pic­ture book. Edit it as free verse, then put it back togeth­er for man­u­script form.
  • Act out the parts and try read­ing your work out loud AS your char­ac­ters! This helps you catch things they wouldn’t say or do and guar­an­tee authenticity.
  • Write one scene at a time. In every scene, you only have to choose if there will be progress or imped­i­ment, and which quest will affect, inter­nal or exter­nal? Now make it MOVE—every scene needs some kind of action.
  • Even if you don’t believe in your­self, believe in your STORY.
  • The only way to know what’s good is to read—a LOT!

 
There was so much more from each of them that my note­book (not to men­tion my brain) is full! If you ever get the chance to hear either one of them speak, don’t let it pass you by. They are both phenomenal.
Anoth­er great com­po­nent of the retreat is learn­ing from the oth­er tal­ent­ed writ­ers in atten­dance.  We had peer cri­tique groups, net­work­ing and social time, and work shared aloud through­out the week­end. So, with all of that feed­back and learn­ing in mind… back to revisions!

Jean Reidy’s Light Up the Library Auction

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LIGHT UP THE NIGHT cover

Author Jean Rei­dy’s new pic­ture book, LIGHT UP THE NIGHT (Hype­r­i­on, Octo­ber 2011) was inspired by her con­nec­tions to Ugan­da and its chil­dren, many of whom have been dis­place due to past civ­il war or orphaned by AIDS. To cel­e­brate the release of the book and hon­or those chil­dren, she is hold­ing an online auc­tion to ben­e­fit lit­er­a­cy in Africa and a library at Musana Chil­dren’s Home in Igan­ga, Uganda.

There are all kinds of great items avail­able including:

Find out how it all works and start plac­ing your bids here. But hur­ry! The auc­tion ends Novem­ber 18, 2011.

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