House of Angels

Hey there . . . our trip to North Carolina was great.  We actually got to go after gem stones where “the real” John Victor goes for them.  It’s at Doc’s Rocks in Boone, NC.  Wow! Got several amethysts the size of large grapes and plums! Also netted some garnets and other gems.  So, we were interviewed by Joan Able, host of Healing Miracles, on Direct TV.  Don did two half-hour interviews, and I did one.  So, the three shows are scheduled to be aired on three consecutive Thursdays:  May 16, 23, and 30, on Direct TV at 12 Midnight.  The Healing Miracles shows are also broadcast on the internet, on Wednesdays at 8 pm and Thursdays at 7 am (EST).  To find the schedules for the internet (I’m not sure whether it’s the Wednesday before or after the TV broadcast) at:  www.TKMI.org.

I was thrilled when she decided to start with a focus on my Johnny Vic books!  After all, it’s a miracle that I was able to write and publish them — hahaha.  And, of course, I’ve written them as testiments to the legacy of our founding fathers and America’s Christian heritage.  Not familiar with Johnny Vic?  Check out my website at:  www.annrichduncan.com.

And, of course, the whole reason we were invited to the show?  It was to focus on the House of Angels, our outdoor sanctuary for prayer and healing.  You can see pictures of this beautiful place if you go to my website and hit the “about Don” button.

Oh!!!!  I shouldn’t forget my novel! The SEED, featuring a grown up John Victor.

ISBN 0-7414-3072-X

March 8 was declared International Women’s Day in 1911 (see International Women’s  Day 1911-2011) and has evolved in the US  into a month-long celebration honoring the contributions of women to the human story. This year, the National Women’s History Project (NWHP) theme for Women’s History Month is Women Inspiring Innovation Through Imagination: Celebrating Women in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (see this blog’s posts:  Science Technology Engineering Math– Stem , Sally Ride 1951-2011,  and Developing Literacy page for STEM links).

About 20 years ago, I participated in the Bay Area Science Project (BASP) through Berkeley’s Lawrence Hall of Science.  It was a fabulous six-week teacher workshop conducted at St. Mary’s High School in Berkeley.  We covered lots of STEM topics, and, explored the FOSS and GEMS programs.  A focus of the workshop was to bring hands-on science into the schools. One of the lead instructors brought in a lovely science themed calendar demonstrating one small way to include science on a daily basis in the classroom.  Marie  Curie was the only woman celebrated in the calendar.  I commented about the lack of gender equity in the calendar and was surprised to hear the instructor declare, “Well, there really aren’t any of note.”  This was Berkeley! I was motivated to find and share the legions of women scientists who had not received public acclamation for their work. Fast forward 20 years, and I was delighted to read about the STEM theme of Women’s History Month.

NWHP honors 18 STEM women.

The 2013 Honorees represent a remarkable range of accomplishments and a wide diversity of specialties including medicine, robotics, computer programming, atmospheric chemistry, architecture and primatology. These women’s lives and work span the centuries of American history and come from different cultural and ethnic backgrounds. We are proud to honor them and all women seeking to advance these important fields.

Drum roll please:

• Hattie Elizabeth Alexander (1901–1968)  Pediatrician and  Microbiologist
• Marlyn Barrett (1954) K-12 STEM Educator
• Patricia Era Bath (1942) Ophthalmologist and Inventor
• Elizabeth Blackwell (1821–1910) Physician
• Katharine Burr Blodgett (1898–1979) Physicist and Inventor
• Edith Clarke (1883–1959) Electrical Engineer
• Rita R. Colwell (1934) Molecular Microbial Ecologist and Scientific Administrator
• Dian Fossey (1932–1985) Primatologist and Naturalist
• Susan A. Gerbi (1944) Molecular Cell Biologist
• Helen Greiner (1967) Mechanical Engineer and Roboticist
• Grace Murray Hopper (1906–1992) Computer Scientist
• Olga Frances Linares (1936) Anthropologist and Archaeologist
• Julia Morgan (1872–1957) Architect
• Louise Pearce (1885–1959) Physician and Pathologist
• Jill Pipher (1955) Mathematician
• Mary G. Ross  (1908–2008) Mechanical Engineer
• Susan Solomon (1956) Atmospheric Chemist
• Flossie Wong-Staal (1946) Virologist and Molecular Biologist

Graphic Rosie Tech from Claremont Port Side.

March 8 was declared International Women’s Day in 1911 (see International Women’s  Day 1911-2011) and has evolved in the US  into a month-long celebration honoring the contributions of women to the human story. This year, the National Women’s History Project (NWHP) theme for Women’s History Month is Women Inspiring Innovation Through Imagination: Celebrating Women in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (see this blog’s posts:  Science Technology Engineering Math– Stem , Sally Ride 1951-2011,  and Developing Literacy page for STEM links).

About 20 years ago, I participated in the Bay Area Science Project (BASP) through Berkeley’s Lawrence Hall of Science.  It was a fabulous six-week teacher workshop conducted at St. Mary’s High School in Berkeley.  We covered lots of STEM topics, and, explored the FOSS and GEMS programs.  A focus of the workshop was to bring hands-on science into the schools. One of the lead instructors brought in a lovely science themed calendar demonstrating one small way to include science on a daily basis in the classroom.  Marie  Curie was the only woman celebrated in the calendar.  I commented about the lack of gender equity in the calendar and was surprised to hear the instructor declare, “Well, there really aren’t any of note.”  This was Berkeley! I was motivated to find and share the legions of women scientists who had not received public acclamation for their work. Fast forward 20 years, and I was delighted to read about the STEM theme of Women’s History Month.

NWHP honors 18 STEM women.

The 2013 Honorees represent a remarkable range of accomplishments and a wide diversity of specialties including medicine, robotics, computer programming, atmospheric chemistry, architecture and primatology. These women’s lives and work span the centuries of American history and come from different cultural and ethnic backgrounds. We are proud to honor them and all women seeking to advance these important fields.

Drum roll please:

• Hattie Elizabeth Alexander (1901–1968)  Pediatrician and  Microbiologist
• Marlyn Barrett (1954) K-12 STEM Educator
• Patricia Era Bath (1942) Ophthalmologist and Inventor
• Elizabeth Blackwell (1821–1910) Physician
• Katharine Burr Blodgett (1898–1979) Physicist and Inventor
• Edith Clarke (1883–1959) Electrical Engineer
• Rita R. Colwell (1934) Molecular Microbial Ecologist and Scientific Administrator
• Dian Fossey (1932–1985) Primatologist and Naturalist
• Susan A. Gerbi (1944) Molecular Cell Biologist
• Helen Greiner (1967) Mechanical Engineer and Roboticist
• Grace Murray Hopper (1906–1992) Computer Scientist
• Olga Frances Linares (1936) Anthropologist and Archaeologist
• Julia Morgan (1872–1957) Architect
• Louise Pearce (1885–1959) Physician and Pathologist
• Jill Pipher (1955) Mathematician
• Mary G. Ross  (1908–2008) Mechanical Engineer
• Susan Solomon (1956) Atmospheric Chemist
• Flossie Wong-Staal (1946) Virologist and Molecular Biologist

Graphic Rosie Tech from Claremont Port Side.

February 21, not a particularly notable day, thought I to myself. Day before George Washington’s birthday (February 22, 1732). So, what possibly could have happened?

What a surprise!  Here are a few gems from the Library of  Congress American Memory Today in History, Arts and Entertainment site This Day in History, and Historyorb.com.

On February 21:

• In 1972, Richard M. Nixon arrived in China for a historic eight-day official visit. He was the first US president to visit the People’s Republic of China since its founding in 1949.
  
• The National Association for  Stock Car Racing, NASCAR, was founded in 1948.
• The Communist Manifesto by Karl Marx was published 1oo years before NASCAR in 1848.
• The Washington Monument was dedicated on this date in 1885
• In 1431, England began the trial against Joan of Arc.
• The first known sewing machine was patented in the US by John Greenough in Washington, D. C. in 1842.
• The World’s Fair in San Francisco, officially known as the Panama-Pacific International Exposition,  opened in 1915 celebrating the successful completion of the Panama Canal in 1914 and a shout out to the world that Frisco was back in business after the devastating Great San Francisco Earthquake April 18, 1906.
• The first American Indian newspaper in the US, Cherokee Phoenix, was published in 1828.
• And, as we get ready for the World  Champion San Francisco  Giants 2013 Season,  we remember that the then NY Giants played the Chicago White Sox in the first exhibition night game in 1931.

Come back next week as we kick off National Women’s History Month. Graphic from Flickr Creative Commons license courtesy of izik.

Black History Month 2013 commemorates two significant events in American History, the 150th anniversary of the 1863 Emancipation Proclamation, and the 50th Anniversary of the 1963 March on Washington, D.C. and Dr.Martin Luther King, Jr.’s I Have a Dream speech.

Black History Month began in 1926, largely through the efforts of Dr. Carter G. Woodson.  February was selected because it is in February that we celebrate the birthdays of two great men, President Abraham Lincoln and Abolitionist Frederick Douglass. An interesting project is the Abraham Lincoln Historical Digitization Project by Northern Illinois University. Also, you might want to check out Stanford University’s The Martin Luther King, Jr. Research and Education Institute.

Books of interest compiled by Mary Schulte of the Kansas City Star:

• I, Too, Am America by Langston Hughes, illustrated by Bryan Collier
• Skit-Scat Raggedy Cat: Ella Fitzgerald by Roxane Orgill, illustrated by Sean Qualls
• Desmond and the Very Mean Word by Archbishop Desmond Tutu and Douglas Carlton Abrams, illustrated by A. G. Ford
• H.O.R.S.E.: A Game of Basketball and Imagination by Christopher Myers
• The Mighty Miss Malone by Christopher Paul Curtis
• Courage Has No Color, The True Story of the Triple Nickles, America’s First Black Paratroopers by Tanya Lee Stone
• I Have a Dream by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., paintings by Kadir Nelson
• A Splash of Red, the Life and Art of Horace Pippin by Jen Bryant
• Unspoken, A Story from the Underground Railroad by Henry Cole
• Hand in Hand: Ten Black Men Who Changed America by Andreas Davis Pinkney, illustrated by Brian Pinkney

Related Articles:

• Abraham Lincoln, 1809-1865 (SSPP Reads 02/04/2009)
• February, Black History Month (SSPP Reads 02/11/2009)
• Black History Month, 2010 (SSPP Reads 02/10/2010)
• The Meaning and Making of Emancipation (eBook available from the National Archives)

Graphic from Perris Valley Historical & Museum Association, Perris CA

Today in History, from the Library of Congress American Memory, we celebrate the Fourth of July. PBS.org offers a comprehensive history of Independence Day at A Capitol Fourth, America’s Independence Day Celebration including the history and music of the celebration, the history of Old  Glory and the National Mall, and lots of links to significant people, places, monuments, and museums of our shared American history. Check it out. Here is a link to local San Francisco Bay Area Fourth of July Events.

Speaking of local, did you know the annual Outside Lands Music and Arts Festival held in San Francisco’s  Golden Gate Park in August brings more than $67 million  to the local economy, including over 750 jobs.  See San Francisco State University Professor Patrick Tierney’s study.  Tierney is chair of the Department of Recreation, Parks and Tourism at SFSU.

And. . . a music-based  curriculum, Academic Music, designed by SFSU researchers Susan Courey and Endre Balogh, is helping children understand fractions.  See  the findings of the six-week trial run at Palo Alto’s Hoover Elementary School in the journal Educational Studies in Mathematics. Look out Kahn Academy! Both of these SFSU studies were highlighted in the SF State Magazine Spring/Summer 2012 edition.

Finally, artist and SFSU Alum Steven J. Backman  used 30,000 toothpicks in his 13-foot long replica of the Golden Gate Bridge. Now on display at the Ripley’s Believe It or Not! Museum at Fisherman’s Wharf in San Francisco.

Graphic courtesy Flickr Creative Commons License by Citoyendu Monde Inc.

Related articles

• Life on The Gate: Working on the Golden Gate Bridge 1933-37
• Western Neighborhoods Project
• Great Minds  Thinking Differently

Reposted from April 18, 2011

The Great San Francisco Earthquake and Fire, April 18, 1906, stretches the imagination as to understanding the widespread destruction of our fair city. Natural disasters throughout our shrinking planet have let us to better able comprehend the impact such horrors present to human beings. We can recall most recently the earthquakes of Japan on March 11, 2011,  Abruzzo, Italy on April 6, 2009, and in the Sichuan Province of Central China on May 12, 2008, Hurricane Katrina and the Levee Breaks of August 2005, and the Indian Ocean Tsunami of December 26, 2004.

Those of us in the San Francisco Bay Area in 1989 can’t forget the Loma Prieta Earthquake of October 17.The Virtual Museum of the City of San Francisco is gathering more data, spearheaded by Gladys Hansen San Francisco City Archivist Emeritus and Curator of the Museum,

In response to repeated requests through our website we are setting out to compile a new and more accurate account of those affected by the 1906 earthquake. We want information on everyone who was here at the time, both survivors and those who perished.

See the Great Register to share your family history and to read about what it was like at the time. Selections young readers might enjoy include: The Great Quake by Beth Geiger (National Geographic Explorer Journal, April 2006), The Great San Francisco Earthquake of 1906 by Bryan Brown (Junior Scholastic Journal, March 27, 2006), Shake, Rattle and Roar! (Junior Scholastic, March 27, 2006), If You Lived at the Time of the Great San Francisco Earthquake by Ellen Levine, The Earth Dragon Awakes by Laurence Yep, and A Song for Sung Li by Pamela Dell. These are all available at the San Francisco Public Library searched with keyword San Francisco Earthquake.

How prepared are you? Check out with your family San Francisco’s 72hours.org for advice on how to prepare your family for natural and human made disasters.

Graphic from http://www.kahnfoundation.org/images/sf_fire.png

Related articles 

• Survivor of 1906 San Francisco quake dies at 109 – San Francisco Chronicle

Author Showcase

By Bianca Schulze, The Children’s Book Review
Published: February 4, 2012

Donna M. McDine

Donna McDine is an award-winning children’s author. Her stories, articles, and book reviews have been published in over 100 print and online publications. Her interest in American History resulted in writing and publishing The Golden Pathway. She writes, moms and is the Editor-in-Chief for Guardian Angel Kids, Publicist for the Working Writer’s Club, and owner of Author PR Services from her home in the historical hamlet Tappan, NY.

TCBR: Can you share a little on your background and how you became a children’s book writer?

Donna M. McDine: I was at a crossroads in my professional career longing to challenge myself outside of computers. At that time I came across the Institute of Children’s Literature aptitude test in a magazine and I took the plunge and completed it. I was happily accepted and graduated from the Writing for Children and Teenagers course in 2007 and haven’t looked back since.

What inspired you to write The Golden Pathway?

I have always been intrigued by American history and I live in the historical hamlet Tappan, NY – which was an integral part of the American Revolution.

What age group did you write the book for?

The Golden Pathway is written for ages 8-12. After discussing curriculum needs with several middle-grade teachers, they all expressed interest in books with illustrators for the visual learners in their classrooms.

Slavery is a topic that can make many people uncomfortable. However, it is a topic that certainly requires attention and discussion and should be approached with sensitivity. What was your approach when telling this particular story?

Even though the main character in the story is a boy, I wrote The Golden Pathway with my daughter in mind. She had come across a television documentary of human trafficking and it shocked her (please know she was 13 at the time). In discussing the documentary our conversation evolved into African slavery. And from there I took her feelings on the subject matter and it flowed into the story.

What would you say is the most important lesson that readers will take away from reading your book?

Children can make a difference even if an adult around them is negative. 

The main character, David, is extremely brave considering the era in which he was raised. From where do you think he draws his inner strength?

From his upbringing by his mother, she taught him how to be sensitive to other people’s needs and he just knew what was right and what was wrong.

You have received Honorable Mentions in the 77th and 78th Annual Writer’s Digest Writing Competitions. What does it mean to you to have received these honors?

These awards provided me with the confidence in my writing to keep going and not to let rejection get in the way of the next story fighting to get o

This Day in World History

December 1, 1955

Rosa Parks refuses to change her seat

On December 1, 1955, Rosa Parks refused to move—and became the mother of the civil rights movement.

In 1955, strict segregation laws separated African Americans and whites in public settings across the South, including Parks’s home town, Montgomery, Alabama. That December evening, returning home from work, Parks sat with three other African Americans in a row just behind the fourteen whites in the front of the bus. Because the bus was full, a white man had to stand when he entered the bus. Under the South’s Jim Crow laws, whites sat and African Americans stood. The bus driver told Parks and the other three blacks to move to the back of the bus—the black section. The other three did, but Parks refused. The driver insisted, and she refused again.  Faced with continued refusal, he used his powers under a city ordinance to arrest her. The driver summoned the police, and Parks spent the night in jail.

The arrest galvanized Montgomery’s African Americans. The local chapter of the NAACP had long resented the segregated buses and the drivers’ treatment of blacks; now they had a chance to act. The next day, a women’s council called for a boycott of the city bus system. African Americans by the thousands complied.  By December 5, a new group—the Montgomery Improvement Association—was formed to coordinate the boycott. Inspired by young clergyman Martin Luther King, Jr., Montgomery’s African Americans kept up their boycott for more than a year, until the U.S. Supreme Court ruled segregation on buses unconstitutional. The Montgomery Bus Boycott was one of the early triumphs of the civil rights movement. Parks later admitted her surprise: “I had no idea when I refused to give up my seat on that Montgomery bus that my small action would help put an end to the segregation laws in the South.”

“This Day in World History” is brought to you by USA Higher Education.
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Thanksgiving, while not strictly an American holiday, has a  history that runs deep.  In October 1782, the Continental Congress declared November 28, 1782, a day of Thanksgiving for the young country.President Abraham Lincoln in 1864 proclaimed a national day of thanksgiving during the Civil War as he shared the news of General U.S. Grant’s success in battles.  Thanksgiving was to be celebrated the last Thursday in November. President Franklin D. Roosevelt, through much maneuvering, formally declared the fourth Thursday of November as Thanksgiving to begin in 1942. Curiously, the change in Thursdays had to do with boosting the economy for the Christmas shopping season, as it was considered at that time inappropriate to advertise for Christmas before Thanksgiving! My goodness how times have changed!

The Education and Social Science Library (University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign), created a Thanksgiving reading list for children. Available on line also is their catalog of Native American Children’s and Young Adult Literature.

A very happy Thanksgiving to you and your families from SSPP Reads.

Reposted  from SSPP  Reads 11/10/2010. Graphic from Mike Licht, Creative Commons License.

New Bedford, Massachusetts, 1851 With the establishment of time and place, Krista Russell sets the stage for her debut novel, Chasing the Nightbird. This historical adventure for middle grade readers (or anyone with an interest in the history of whaling) tells the story of Lucky Valera, a fourteen year old boy who has grown up at sea, working on whaling ships with his father. After his

The Veterans Day National Ceremony is held each year on November 11th at Arlington National Cemetery . The ceremony commences precisely at 11:00 a.m. with a wreath laying at the Tomb of the Unknowns and continues inside the Memorial Amphitheater with a parade of colors by veterans’ organizations and remarks from dignitaries. The ceremony is intended to honor and thank all who served in the United States Armed Forces. (US Dept. of Veterans Affairs)

The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs and the Veterans Day National Committee have provided a Teacher Resource Guide for this year’s Veterans Day, 11-11-11. There are more than 24 million Veterans who have reintegrated back into our communities.

Following are a few key facts about Veterans’ Day; you can find more at VA Kids. or keyword search at the San Francisco Public Library.

• WWI officially ended in the summer of 1919 with the signing of the Treaty of Versailles
• Bullets stopped flying  seven months earlier  on the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month–11-11-1918–when an armistice between Germany and the Allied Forces went into effect.
• In 1938, the US Congress declared Armistice Day a federal legal holiday.
• In 1968 Congress enacted legislation to change Veteran’s Day to the fourth Monday of October but under pressure from veterans groups, the holiday returned to the historically significant date of November 11.

Make your own medal to give your veteran, thanking him or her for their service to their country.

Parts of this post originally appeared here on 11-07-2010. Graphic from Department of Veterans Affairs.