Colorful folktales
When I was a kid, my dad was involved in a project to help retain and transmit Anansi the Spider stories of Liberia, where my parents had served in the Peace Corps. I remember him having a pile of type-written…
Paying homage
When we learned earlier this fall that Louisiana author Coleen Salley had suddenly passed away, we were humbly privileged to realize what a gift she’d given when she called our author name pronunciation line. Listening to Coleen Salley’s Author Name…
Mouse tales
A new movie released this month is based on Kate DiCamillo’s Newbery-winning book The Tale of Despereaux: Being the Story of a Mouse, a Princess, Some Soup, and a Spool of Thread.
Explore Kate DiCamillo’s Original Author Program and…
Sample and savor
Every year around this time my grandfather would give my grandmother a box of chocolates. I quickly learned that not every chocolate in the sampler box thrilled me. One year, my sister taught me the trick of picking out a…
Diaries — er, I mean, journals — and kids
When I visited my 11-year-old niece during last week’s holiday, I learned that she had recently purchased and donated a copy of Jeff Kinney’s Diary of a Wimpy Kid to her previous 5th grade classroom. My niece’s former teacher had…
On tollbooths, kitchen windows, and inspiration
You, educators and users of TeachingBooks.net, often inspire the new resources on the site. For example, educators we met at a conference in Portland, Oregon mentioned how much they would love to see us create new original resources for the…