Title: Papa’s Suns
Illustrator: Samantha Bell
Published: June 2015
Pages: 18
Unexpected changes are part of life and when we least expect it those changes can sneak up on us. How we handle those changes whether for the good or bad can set an example for those around us.
Young Jacob has a special bond with his Papa through the love of drawing. What happens when Papa suffers a stroke, which affects his speech and ability to move his body correctly? Will Papa retreat further into a world without drawing with not having the capability to create or does the love between the Jacob and Papa bloom into new ways of drawing?
Journey along with Jacob to see if he learns how to adapt to his “new” Papa and with different ways of communicating.
Kevin McNamee has created a splendid story of everlasting love through a too often experienced health issue of stroke. Genius!
Samantha Bell’s soft imagery lends to the heartwarming story of the special love between grandson and grandfather. Splendid!
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Best wishes,
Donna M. McDineMulti Award-winning Children's Author
Ignite curiosity in your child through reading!Connect with
Donna McDine on Google+A Sandy Grave ~ January 2014 ~ Guardian Angel Publishing, Inc. ~ 2014 Purple Dragonfly 1st Place Picture Books 6+, Story Monster Approved, Beach Book Festival Honorable Mention 2014, Reader's Favorite Five Star Review
Powder Monkey ~ May 2013 ~ Guardian Angel Publishing, Inc. ~ 2015 Purple Dragonfly Book Award Historical Fiction 1st Place, Story Monster Approved and Reader's Favorite Five Star Review
Hockey Agony ~ January 2013 ~ Guardian Angel Publishing, Inc. ~ 2015 Purple Dragonfly Book Award Honorable Mention Picture Books 6+, New England Book Festival Honorable Mention 2014, Story Monster Approved and Reader's Favorite Five Star Review
The Golden Pathway ~ August 2010 ~ Guardian Angel Publishing, Inc. ~ Literary Classics Silver Award and Seal of Approval, Readers Favorite 2012 International Book Awards Honorable Mention and Dan Poynter's Global e-Book Awards Finalist
I'm thrilled to announce that my latest picture book, Papa's Suns is scheduled to be released shortly. Below is the official blurb for this book which should be coming out at the end of the month.
Jacob and his grandfather like to spend time drawing pictures together. But after
Papa has a stroke, Jacob is afraid that his Papa will be different. Although Papa’s
body is healing, Jacob discovers that the love between him and his grandfather will
never change.
This book is close to my heart because it based on the relationship between my father-in-law and my daughter. Here is a sneak peek at the cover. The illustrations are beautifully done by Samantha Bell.
Okay, so call this a
Beth loves her students blog-athon day, but I am not going to let the moon get any higher in tonight's sky without celebrating Maggie Ercolani, a student from two years ago, who has her first published piece in the current issue of the
Pennsylvania Gazette. She joins my students
Moira Moody,
Joe Polin, and
Nabil Mehta on these pages, and her story is a triumph—a telling triumph and a living triumph.
Let me explain.
Toward the end of this past summer I received an email from Maggie who I knew, from an earlier exchange, had been looking forward to a summer internship at Macy's with Maggie-style enthusiasm. I saw her name in my in-box, opened her note, then recoiled. It wasn't the story I'd expected. Indeed, Maggie was writing to tell me that she had suffered a stroke in the first hour of the first day of that internship. That she had spent the summer in hospitals and rehab. That she had a new understanding of the father about whom she had written in my class—a father who had experienced a traumatic brain injury when he tumbled from a bike. Maggie wanted to write about what had happened so that she might understand. Would I help her? Of course I would. But oh, Maggie, I said. Oh. Maggie.
But the reason Maggie's piece is in the
Gazette is because Trey Popp, an editor there, took Maggie's story on and worked with her to develop it more fully. They went back and forth, Trey and Maggie, until the piece is what it is today. I am so grateful to Trey, and I am so proud of Maggie—for her perseverance, for her attitude, for the textures in her life.
Please click on
this link to read Maggie's story for yourself.
By Dr Alex Dregan
Do vascular risk factors such as high blood pressure and smoking make us forgetful?
As our bodies start to show the signs of ageing, our brain is naturally ageing too. But some older people can become forgetful and have trouble remembering common words or organising daily activities more than others. There are few proven interventions to prevent this kind of cognitive decline in older adults, although treating modifiable risk factors for vascular disease and stroke, such as cholesterol and body mass index (BMI), has been suggested as a promising approach to preventing or delaying cognitive impairment for a growing UK population of older adults. So is there a link between high blood pressure and forgetfulness?
Despite much recent interest, studies to date have reported inconsistent relationships between blood pressure and cognitive functioning. Evidence suggests that people diagnosed with high blood pressure levels tend to perform more poorly on most domains of cognitive functioning, including memory, learning, attention, and reasoning. However, clinical trials have so far failed to demonstrate that antihypertensive drugs used to lower or control high blood pressure levels are effective in preventing cognitive decline in older adults. This inconsistent evidence poses a challenge when developing recommendations for the prevention of cognitive ageing.
Cognitive ageing, such as symptoms of forgetfulness, is increasingly seen as the result of the joint effect of several vascular disease risk factors, including high blood pressure, BMI, cholesterol levels, and smoking. However, the combined influence of these on cognitive decline is less commonly explored among older adults at increased risk of both cardiovascular disease and cognitive decline.
In a recent paper, we looked at Framingham stroke and cardiovascular risk scores (a measure used to assess an individual’s probability of developing stroke or cardiovascular disease over a 10-years period) and investigated their association with cognitive decline in older adults. The study included over 8,000 adults aged 50+ living in private households in England. Participants with the highest risk of future stroke or cardiovascular events, based on their risk factors values, were found to perform more poorly on tests of memory and executive functioning after a four year period. This adds weight to the theory that the combined effects of risk factors for vascular disease and stroke may be associated with more rapid cognitive decline in older adults. In other words, those at greater risk of cardiovascular problems were likely to experience a more rapid onset of symptoms associated with cognitive decline, such as forgetfulness.
We believe that these findings support the need for a multifaceted approach when seeking to prevent cognitive decline. The main implication of this is the need for addressing the combined effect of multiple risk factors, including lowering high blood pressure and high cholesterol levels, weight loss, and stopping smoking. Thus, healthcare professionals should encourage older people to adopt healthy lifestyles that would include stopping smoking and increased exercise (as well as improved diet not investigated here) and taking prescribed medicines aimed at controlling high blood pressure and high cholesterol levels. Such recommendations could potentially prevent or delay future declining memory or reasoning capacities in older adults, particularly those in higher risk groups.
The results also suggest that a harmful effect of high blood pressure on memory or reasoning abilities may develop over a prolonged period of time. This may be one reason why short-term trials have failed to show a consistent benefit from antihypertensive treatment on cognitive decline. For instance, since the negative impact of high blood pressure on memory or reasoning abilities takes place over a prolonged period of time, short-term treatment may not be sufficient to reverse or delay its adverse influence. Therefore, we would expect that any potential cognitive benefits from lowering blood pressure may only be observed over substantial periods of time.
These new results suggest that attention to the combined effects of multiple vascular risk factors may hold some promise as a strategy to prevent cognitive decline in older adults.
Dr Alex Dregan is a Lecturer in Translational Epidemiology within the NIHR Biomedical Research Centre at the Guy’s and St Thomas’ NHS Trust and King’s College London. He trained in Public health at the Institute of Education, University of London. His research interests are in translational epidemiology research as applied to public health. He is co-author of the paper Cardiovascular risk factors and cognitive decline in adults aged 50 and over: a population-based cohort study for the Age and Ageing journal, and this has been made freely available for a limited time.
Age and Ageing is an international journal publishing refereed original articles and commissioned reviews on geriatric medicine and gerontology. Its range includes research on ageing and clinical, epidemiological, and psychological aspects of later life.
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STROKE: Remember the 1st Three Letters..... S. T. R.
STROKE IDENTIFICATION:
During a BBQ, a woman stumbled and took a little fall - she assured everyone that she was fine (they offered to call paramedics) ....she said she had just tripped over a brick because of her new shoes.
They got her cleaned up and got her a new plate of food. While she appeared a bit shaken up, Jane went about enjoying herself the rest of the evening.
Jane's husband called later telling everyone that his wife had been taken to the hospital - (at 6:00 pm Jane passed away.) She had suffered a stroke at the BBQ. Had they known how to identify the signs of a stroke, perhaps Jane would be with us today. Some don't die. They end up in a helpless, hopeless condition instead.
It only takes a minute to read this.
A neurologist says that if he can get to a stroke victim within 3 hours he can totally reverse the effects of a stroke...totally. He said the trick was getting a stroke recognized, diagnosed, and then getting the patient medically cared for within 3 hours, which is tough.
RECOGNIZING A STROKE
Thank God for the sense to remember the '3' steps, STR. Read and Learn!
Sometimes symptoms of a stroke are difficult to identify. Unfortunately, the lack of awareness spells disaster. The stroke victim may suffer severe brain damage when people nearby fail to recognize the symptoms of a stroke.
Now doctors say a bystander can recognize a stroke by asking three simple questions:
By: Lauren,
on 7/26/2010
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“I do not have a favorite story,” said Dr. Olajide Williams about his book Stroke Diaries. “For me–a physician–the word favorite in the context of stroke does not seem appropriate.”
Dr. Williams is a general neurologist with special interest in stroke, and Associate Professor of Clinical Neurology at Columbia University. He is also a fellow of Columbia University’s prestigious Glenda Garvey Academy for outstanding teaching, and has been recognized locally and nationally for humanism in medicine.
Stroke Diaries is a collection of Dr. Williams experiences, both somber and hopeful. He told me, “Some memories are more vivid than others, some experiences more profound. Pedro’s story is one of those. I remember the morning Pedro told me in the stroke clinic that his greatest pain since his stroke was his physical inability to care for Lucy, his dog. I remember the noose of hopelessness dangling around his neck; the way he sat in front of me, scratching frenziedly at his paralyzed right arm, the deep excoriation marks, the trails of oozing blood from under his skin, my concerns about a drug allergy, and the way he talked about Lucy. I remember watching tears fall from his heavy eyes and the relief in my heart that he was opening up for the first time in months since his stroke. I remember not knowing what to do; a momentary lapse that seemed infinitely long.”
I have excerpted the story of Pedro and his beloved dog below. I can only hope you will find it as powerful as I did.
The Man Who Did Not Take His Medicine
Pedro was lying on the bathroom floor next to the toilet bowl. Water was still running from rusty faucet, overflowing the sink, and pooling around his body as he lay limp on wet porcelain tiles. Lucy was standing over him and whining. The young black Labrador retriever had not left her owner’s side since the previous night. It was as if she had predicted it, as if she was responding to some perceptible change in his body, perhaps even a “stroke odor” that her heightened sense of smell allowed her to detect. Lucy had followed him everywhere; she lay awake next to him throughout the night, constantly licking the left side of his body. She rushed after him into the bathroom that morning, before Pedro’s world began to tilt–the visual metamorphosis, tilting up to 180° in second, and developing into a violent vertigo that caused him to slump to the ground, hitting his head against the toilet bowl on the way down.
It was 5:30 a.m. The sun had just begun its ascent above the coastline when Pedro woke up to brush his teeth. And now, hours later, he could not get up off the floor. He could not move his left arm or left leg, and he could not feel Lucy licking his left palm. When he realized what was happening, fear filled his soul like a poisonous gas causing a great panic inside him. Dazed and desperate, Pedro dragged himself into the bedroom, sliding onto the wooden floor with his wet clothes, snaking himself around a large floor cushion, knocking over the standing lamp, dragging himself towards the far window by his bed, towards the sunrays that filtered though half-open blinds. Lucy began barking; Pedro began banking against the window. He cried out for help, thumping the glass with his one working arm, trying to alarm his neighbors or anyone who could have saved him. As Lucy barked louder, the stroked tightened its grip, claiming Pedro against his will, pulling he prize right out of him–a piece of his brain–against the tugging of a frantic soul.
Per
By: Lauren,
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Lauren Appelwick
The morning of June 9th, I and about 500 NYC elementary school students gathered at the Apollo theater to dance, gawk at rap music icons, and…learn about healthy eating. Hip Hop HEALS (Healthy Eating and Living in Schools) is a program that seeks to teach young people the rules for healthy living, ways to prevent heart disease and strokes, and curb the incidences of childhood obesity.
The showcase featured rap stars Doug E. Fresh, Kool Moe Dee, Artie Green, Chuck D (via video), Grandmaster Caz, Easy A.D., DJ Webstar and New York State first lady Michelle Paterson, among a number of student performers.
“You’re giving energy and you’re getting it back,” said Doug E. Fresh. “We wanna use hip hop as a positive tool to influence and enlighten.”
To the beats of Snoop Dogg, for instance, students were encouraged
If it’s deep fried and greasy
Drop it like it’s hot, drop it like it’s hot, drop it like it’s hot
If it’s high in calories
Drop it like it’s hot, drop it like it’s hot, drop it like it’s hot
If it’s rotting out your teeth
Drop it like it’s hot, drop it like it’s hot, drop it like it’s hot
“We believe it’s the music and cartoons that really are the heart and soul of the program,” said Stroke Diaries author and Harlem Hospital’s “Hip Hop Doc” Olajide Williams, MD.
Dr. Williams is the founder and director of the Hip Hop Public Education Center, which has also partnered with the National Stroke Association to develop the Hip Hop Stroke program. In a video, Williams says, “When I first saw the program that they had developed, I was very excited, I thought, ‘This has terrific potential.’ There was only one thing missing: in the program they had developed, there was no hip hop.”
So the Hip Hop Doc teamed up with Doug E. Fresh to produce a series of cartoons to further the mission. Each video features a rap song. Stroke Ain’t No Joke, <
By: Rebecca,
on 5/17/2010
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John Galbraith Simmons studied philosophy at Northwestern University, graduating with honors, and also holds a degree in developmental studies from Long Island University. His newest book, written with Justin Zivin, is tPA for Stroke: The Story of a Controversial Drug. The book, which will be published in November, looks at the history of tPA which can drastically reduce the long-term disability associated with stroke if it is administered within the first three hours after the event occurs. In the original article below Simmons looks at Beau Biden’s recent stroke.
Details around Beau Biden’s “mild stroke” on Tuesday, May 12, remain unclear, although his reported symptoms were paralysis, numbness, and headache. He and his family, and his political entourage, currently are limiting their contact with the press while portraying him as alert and in possession of “full motor and speech skills.” Stroke is a genuinely disorienting event, so some initial reluctance to disclose may be understandable — for now.
But Beau Biden, 41, may help put a public face on the larger issues around stroke, a disease much neglected in terms of public awareness. Stroke is the leading cause of adult disability and third leading cause of death (after the sum of cancers and heart attack) — and receives little attention relative to its importance. Most germane are two issues. First is whether Biden’s stroke was appropriately treated as an acute emergency. Second, but no less significant, is whether his stroke was ischemic (due to a blood clot or blockage) and if he received the FDA-approved drug for stroke, known as tPA.
At present, indications are that Biden or family members made the right call — which, for stroke signs and symptoms, always means 911. He was taken by ambulance to Christiana Care Health System, one of the largest hospital systems in Delaware. Christiana Care is a certified primary stroke center that would in effect insure that if he were eligible for treatment, and if tPA was appropriate, he would have received it. After suffering his stroke on Tuesday morning, Biden was later in the day transferred to Thomas Jefferson University Hospital in Philadelphia. No explanation for the transfer was forthcoming but reports continued to be positive for a full recovery.
tPA, which stands for tissue plasminogen activator, is the only approved treatment for ischemic strokes, which are caused by blood clots or blockages and account for about 85% of all strokes. A “clot-busting” drug, tPA is not difficult to administer but must be given within four and a half hours after symptoms start, and a computerized brain scan is first required to rule out a bleeding, or hemorrhagic, stroke. Although approved by the FDA for stroke in 1996, tPA has had a long and difficult road to widespread acceptance among physicians, while potential victims remain for the most part disturbingly unaware of it.
For the present, Beau Biden’s “mild” stroke is worthy of headlines because he’s young, the son of a U.S. vice president, and a rising political star in his own right. Although strokes are more common in older people, Biden’s problem is not rare. But the genuine story, it may turn out, will be to enhance public awareness of stroke as a hyperacute event. From Biden and his family, we will be waiting to hear better and more detailed news.
by Annette Leal Mattern
I began researching this article in a completely different frame of mind. I had recently come across hideous marketing campaigns by the makers of Virginia Slims and Camel cigarettes. Both campaigns specifically target young girls, wooing them by creating an image - women who smoke are sexy and hip and free. Chic new packaging make the cigarettes a fashion statement and I wondered how many impressionable young girls (yes girls, not women) fell under the spell, succumbed to the myth. How many new smokers joined the ranks?
Last year, Camel, a male-dominated brand, packaged their cigarettes in fuchsia
and mint lined, black shiny boxes and called them Camel No. 9, a clear rip-off of French perfume Channel No. 19. This year, Virginia Slims launched a campaign that packages “stiletto” thin cigarettes in adorable pink and teal half-size purses, the must-have accessory for the clubbing crowd.
Naturally, I expected young Latinas to be very vulnerable to this marketing hype . . . but I was wrong. In this category, Hispanic women are not leading this pack and I’m thrilled. In this race, we don’t want to be first.
Around 1925, Edward Louis Bernays originated modern public relations by
drawing upon his uncle Sigmund Freud's psychological ideas for the benefit of marketing products. Bernays was one of the first to attempt to manipulate public opinion using the subconscious. One of his first industries: tobacco.
The subsequent 83 years have been a constant flow of subliminal messages about cigarettes as exciting, smooth tasting, satisfying, manly, sexy, sophisticated, chic, classy, slick and even healthy. We met the Marlboro Man, all rugged yet polished, and we were hooked. And millions of Americans bought pack after pack
after pack.
Here are the statistics of smokers in the United States:
-Among non-Hispanic whites, 23.5 percent of men and 18.8 percent of women smoke.
- Among Hispanics, 20.1 percent of men and 10.1 percent of women smoke.
Among the youth, 22% of Hispanic high school students smoke, compared with 25% of Whites. Even younger, 9% of the Hispanic middle school student population are smokers.
A study by the Center for Disease control attributes this disparity to an important cultural difference: Seventy-one percent (71%) of all Hispanic households do not allow smoking in the home. This smoking ban in the home further protects Hispanic youth from secondhand smoke.
Hispanic smokers are more likely to try to quit than White smokers but are less likely to have access to resources such as doctors or nicotine replacement therapy, so they are not as successful. Only 43% of Hispanic smokers are able to quit, compared to 51% of Whites.
Unfortunately, the Hispanic community is drifting closer to the White smoker, as families become more acculturated into the mainstream of the U.S. and this is not good.
So here’s the ugly part no one wants to hear-
Cancer is the second leading cause of death among Hispanics in the U.S. Almost one in five Hispanic deaths is attributable to cancer. Over 20,000 Hispanics died of cancer in 2002. In 2000, about 1,000 Hispanic women and 2,000 Hispanic men died of lung cancer. Cigarette smoking is overwhelmingly the most important cause of lung cancer, but it also increases the risk for other cancers, including cervix, mouth, larynx, pharynx, esophagus, kidney, bladder, pancreas, stomach and some forms of leukemia.
Additionally, heart attacks/ cardiovascular disease are the primary cause of death of Hispanics in the United States. In 2002, heart disease killed more than 27,000 Hispanics. Smoking is a major cause of heart disease.
The third leading cause of death in the U.S. and fourth among Hispanics is stroke. In 2002, nearly 6,500 Hispanics died of strokes. Smoking significantly increases the risk for stroke. Overall, smokers have a life span that is 15 years shorter than non-smokers.
If you smoke, find a way to quit - - now. Please. Whatever it takes, you must stop, for yourself, for the people who love you, for the rest of us. I lost people I loved to lung cancer and the pain, the loss, the grief, the missed years, the caregiving and the cost are all our business.
Find resources and set yourself up for success. Search the Internet for smoke cessation and you’ll find tons of resources to support you. The current thinking on smoke cessation is that a multi-prong program is best, using prescription medications, nicotine replacement and mind/body tools such as exercise, yoga, meditation or even hypnosis.
If teenagers in your household are smoking, make it a top priority to get them to quit. To them, smoking is an initiation ritual and a sign of independence. But it will soon become a deadly habit that most smokers regret.
We need to build a world where young people reject tobacco because they see it for what it is, an addictive and toxic practice designed to seduce our very own ego.
And, as the Hispanic “market segment” grows, we’ll see more and more Latinos and Latinas in ads with gorgeous clothes and fast cars, beautiful brown skin and dark eyes, sensual and sophisticated and smoking. It’s smart marketing.
About the author:
Annette Leal Mattern held numerous corporate leadership positions where she championed development of minorities for upper management. She received the National Women of Color Technology Award for Enlightenment for her diversity achievements and was recognized by Latina Style and Vice President Gore as one of the most influential Latinas in American business. In 2000, she left her corporate work to devote herself to women's cancer causes. Her book, Outside The Lines of love, life, and cancer, helps people cope with the disease. Annette serves on the board of directors of the Ovarian Cancer National Alliance and founded the Ovarian Cancer Alliance of Arizona, for which she serves as president. Annette also writes for http://www.empowher.com.
Some of you have already had the pleasure of meeting the author of A CROOKED KIND OF PERFECT on kellyrfineman's blog this week. If you haven't seen her interview, it's terrific. If you did see Kelly's post, you can consider this your second date with Linda! I'm doing a presentation on my upcoming historical novel SPITFIRE at this weekend's Burlington Book Festival, and Linda's talk on CROOKED is right afterwards in the same room, so I wanted to invite her here for a visit first.
Whether they're adults or kids, people who love reading and writing always want to hear the story of how their favorite books came to be. What was the inspiration for A CROOKED KIND OF PERFECT and how did it grow into the middle grade novel it is today?
It started as a picture book. I was telling author/illustrator David Small about my childhood fantasy of playing classical music on a grand piano and how my dad got seduced by the rhythm switches of a mall organ. David said, "I can just see the illustrations for that!" A few weeks later I wrote a picture book, but the voice and pacing were all wrong for a picture book. It wasn't until two years later that I gave it a try as a novel. That's when the story took off.
Many of my blog readers are teachers of writing, and they're always looking for ways to help kids with revision. Would you share with us a few of your favorite revision strategies?
Nothing beats reading your work aloud. That's when you hear all the word repetition and discover the rhythm of the piece. For me, writing is about capturing a sound, a voice, a mood. I can't be sure I've done that until I actually hear the work.
On to the fun stuff now....
Why Neil Diamond?
Many people think I picked "Forever in Blue Jeans" for some sort of cheese factor, but really it is a very sweet, very earnest song that fit Zoe's story perfectly. She has to see past the cheese of it, past the disappointment that her competition piece is not the perfect classical composition she had imagined herself playing, and come to love this simple, honest melody. The lyrics underscore that.
We live in such an ironic age, enamored of kitsch and edge. People are made to feel foolish for feeling things with their whole hearts. If there is anything that I can do to let kids know that it is okay to express what honestly matters to them, I'm all for it. Hence, a little Neil Diamond.
The desserts described in A CROOKED KIND OF PERFECT sound perfectly delicious. Are you a great dessert chef, a great dessert eater, neither, or both?
I bake some. Cookies and breads mostly. I have a lot of admiration for people who make beautiful desserts. When you and I spend hours on our writing, part of us is thinking that maybe we'll find a few words that will live on beyond us, bound in a book, available forever and ever and ever. A pastry chef can put her heart into a cake - hours of work - and then the whole thing gets swallowed up and that is that. You really have to care a great deal about making art when you know it is only going to last thirty minutes.
And your favorite dessert is...?
Apple pie. Yum.
What books -- for kids or adults -- have you read and loved lately?
I just finished Elijah of Buxton, the latest historical by Christopher Paul Curtis. What a genius that man is. He starts by letting us meet Elijah at his most silly and, as his Mama would say "fra-gile", falling for an elaborate story about "hoop snakes", playing a practical joke, and getting one played on him in return. It is hysterically funny and perfect for grabbing the attention of young readers. In a few short pages you can't help but know and love Elijah. And then, slowly, and without losing humor or character, we are introduced into the deep and lasting horrors of slavery that have shaped the lives of the townspeople of Buxton. The effect is devastating. You've got to read this book.
What can folks expect if they come to see you at the Burlington Book Festival this weekend?
I plan to read a little from A Crooked Kind of Perfect and talk with kids and grown-ups about writing, perfection, and getting over the fears that stop us from doing those things that really matter to us.
If anyone LJ friends are in the area (or up for a road trip!), I know that Linda and I would both love to meet you. Here's the scoop on our presentations:
Burlington Book Festival
Waterfront Theatre, Burlington, VT
11:00 AM-12:00 PM
KATE MESSNER
Join Kate Messner for a trip back in time to the American Revolution on Lake Champlain. Kate will read from her middle grade historical novel Spitfire, set during the Battle of Valcour Island in 1776, sign books and present an interactive multimedia slide show about the real 12-year-old who fought in the battle. Kids will be invited to taste the food and try on the clothes of an 18th century sailor, handle artifact replicas and design their own powder horns to take home.
Waterfront Theatre Black Box, 3rd Floor
12:30-1:30 PM
LINDA URBAN
Linda will debut her new book for young readers (ages 8-12), A Crooked Kind of Perfect. Listen to excerpts and find out what it's like to write and publish a novel for kids.
Waterfront Theatre Black Box, 3rd Floor
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I know it's early, but I want to let everyone know about the Burlington Book Festival coming up next month. Burlington, VT hosts an incredible book festival each fall, just as the leaves are changing color in New England. If you live in the Northeast (or even if you don't but you really, really like autumn leaves and books), it's worth the trip. Most of the events are being held at Waterfront Theater on the shores of Lake Champlain.
I'll be presenting on Sunday, September 16th at the Children's Literature Festival. Here's my blurb from the festival website:
11:00 AM-12:00 PM
KATE MESSNER
Join Kate Messner for a trip back in time to the American Revolution on Lake Champlain. Kate will read from her middle grade historical novel Spitfire, set during the Battle of Valcour Island in 1776, sign books and present an interactive multimedia slide show about the real 12-year-old who fought in the battle. Kids will be invited to taste the food and try on the clothes of an 18th century sailor, handle artifact replicas and design their own powder horns to take home.
Waterfront Theatre Black Box, 3rd Floor
Right after my presentation, Linda Urban (lurban) will read from A CROOKED KIND OF PERFECT and talk about the journey of writing and publishing a children's book. (Even though Linda says it will make her nervous, my kids and I are definitely going to be in the audience!)
Also on tap for the Sunday kids' day... Tracey Campbell Pearson, James Kochalka, Anna Dewdney, Harry Bliss, Jim Arnosky, Barbara Seuling, Marie-Louise Gay, Barbara Lehman, and Warren Kimble.
And the rest of the Book Festival is nothing to scoff at either, with writers like Chris Bohjalian, Howard Frank Mosher, Russell Banks, and Joyce Carol Oates speaking on Saturday, September 15th. The full schedule is posted at the festival website now. If you're in the area that weekend, please stop by the Children's Literature Festival and say hello!
What a deeply moving story this is! And Maggie was so young to have such a thing happen to her. I was 50 when my brain aneurysm ruptured and I was lucky enough to survive without the accompanying stroke that so many have.
But I can sympathize with so much of what she says. I didn't know what an aneurysm rupture was when it happened. My family and friends were what got me through my recuperation. And I definitely had a new outlook on life.
Thank you, Beth, for sharing your student's inspiring story.
What a wonderful essay and an incredible story. Reaffirms my belief that you know only the most inspiring and courageous people. : )
I'm sorry Maggie had to go through this, especially at such a young age. I'm impressed by both her positive attitude and her fine writing. She had a terrific teacher! Thanks for sharing this, Beth, and congratulations to Maggie on being published in the Gazette.
I wonder if The New York Times' "Lives" column takes reprints.