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 Literacy and NCTE See What the NCTE (National Council of Teacher of English) Official Blog has to say about Four Feet Two Sandals: Four Feet, Two Sandalsby Karen Lynn Williams and Khadra Mohammed 1-5This book is a great way to introduce children to the realities of living in a refugee camp, why people are refugees, and then relate it to their own lives. A ten year old girl named Lina ends up sharing a pair of sandals with a girl named Feroza, since there are not enough sandals for everyone. These two characters [...]

Many people have contacted me to ask about Beatrice now.   Here are some photos of Beatrice with her husband and daughter Ariel.  Wendy Stone is the photographer who took the photos for the illustrations for the book.  You can see her work and learn more about Wendy at http://www.wendystone.comThanks for your interest and keep dreaming!

 So this is the writing Life.   You write and rewrite and rewrite and submit and write and wait and wait and wait to hear from an agent or publisher.  Sometimes you get fan mail.   That keeps you writing.   Sometimes you get rejections.   You keep writing and submitting.  (OK you might cry or scream or rant or threaten to quit).  A royalties check arrives!  You may have forgotten about those because really?  You are deep into the next project(hopefully).  You write some more and wait some more.  Sometimes you sell a book [...]

What a great day at Severn School in Arnold Maryland, outside of Baltimore!  Treated like a celeb by the news media.  A full day left me feeling appreciated.Check it out here in the Capital Gazette. http://www.capitalgazette.com/neighborhoods/ph-ac-cc-around-the-park-0406-20170405-story.html

I wrote the book Galimoto nearly thirty years ago and kids at schools where I travel to as  a visiting author are still making galimotos.   In the book, Kondi searches his village in Malawi, Africa to find enough wire to make a toy car that has moving parts; axle, wheels, and a steering wheel that all work.The children I saw in Malawi used whatever they could find to make these parts for their toys, which for me, are like works of art.  The wheels might be made out of wire pounded with a [...]

You see this letter about Sangoel?  It was written on October 25, 2016.  This reader likes the part about how Sangoel writes his name in rebus on his shirt.  "I think it was a creative solution."   I love it!  I did write back.  But I have not posted anything in a long time.  Recent events have dragged me down.  FB can be a scary place.  The whole internet, the world too.But the sun is out and the sky is blue, completely blue.  Not a cloud.  And kids are reading.  and responding.  And believe [...]