This week is Food Allergy Awareness Week and I'd like to take a moment to thank the people at Daughter's school, who have been incredible this school year...
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To Mr. K.--cowboy principal,When I first met you, I nicknamed you our cowboy principal because you're more concerned with what's best for the students, rather than the politics. While our school has strong guidelines for handling
This is so cool. Randy Pausch, Professor of Carnegie Mellon University started The Alice Project at Carnegie Mellon University to help teen girls learn to program. All in a 3D programming environment so teens can learn how to create animation to tell a story or play an interactive game while learning introductory computing.
You can download versions for middle school and high school/college
February is the month of Love. In the case of readergirlz, it's about heart and poetry. Readergirlz is celebrating this month with the novel, Bronx Masquerade by Nikki Grimes. Read an excerpt of her book here. To join in the interesting discussions, go over here. It's because of some of these eye-opening conversations that I was compelled to write this post. And it's all about love in a way. The
As the holiday season approaches many folks will be traveling.
I've been helping teachers, parents and kids find audio books "for the road" recently.
As a public service, it has occurred to me that we might compile some suggestions for good listens in the car or on planes or trains.
Personally, I have found audio books very motivating to get me out walking more frequently.
I like a narrator whose performance or personae does not get in the way of the story. I found Brendan Fraser's narration of Cornelia Funke's Dragon Rider almost too distracting at first because I kept hearing "Brendan Fraser" instead of the story. I knew Funke had envisioned him as Mo in Inkheart so I was interested to see if he could really bring the story to life. I did enjoy the book after a while but felt he was pushing a bit hard on the character's voices. I have not heard any of his subsequent reads. I imagine there is a learning curve.
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Jim Dale's sublime readings of JKRowling's Harry Potter books are the gold standard of audiobook-dom. Yes, I've read them but I found listening to them has highlighted new details and brought the books to life in a whole new way. Dale's performance sets the bar for charicterization and originality.
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Anything read by Allan Corduner.
Corduner read Book one of Septimus Heap series, Magyk with such style and aplomb that I rushed to get the next book in audio form. I was disappointed to discover that Corduner did not read the other books in the series and I could not settle in to the second book at all until some time had passed.
I had been planning to read The Keys to the Kingdom series by Garth Nix so when I saw Corduner read them I was thrilled. Mister Monday was excellent. I have book 2 on the old mp3 player now.
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The Joey Pigza books by Jack Gantos, read by the author are hilarious, poignant, touching, scream-out-loud funny. I hope you saw 7 Imp's excellent interview with Gantos during the Winter Blog Blast Tour.
I do not think anybody else but Gantos can read his books. I have still been unable to listen to Love Curse of the Rumbaughs because he did not read it. I think I recall the rep at FSG telling me that he had not initially wanted to let another person narrate. They should have listened to him.
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Sometimes I just know that I will never get around to reading a book. Carl Hiassen's Hoot was on my "want to read" list but it just never seemed to make it to the top of the pile. I was very happy to find the audiobook and Chad Lowe does an outstanding job of bringing the story to life.
More to come... I'd like your suggestions too.
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Additional audiobooks:
Ninjas, Piranhas, and Galileo by Greg Leitich Smith is an excellent audiobook. The narrators who read Elias, Shohei and Honoria are spot on. Their performances are so good but Recorded Books DOES NOT CREDIT THEM by name anywhere on the jacket or box. Unbelievable.
"It's hard for me to focus on very much these days, perhaps because, like Trudy and everyone, I'm waiting for this boring election to be over and I've run out of things to say about it."
That's a a clueless academic poo-pooing the historic 2000 presidential election in Trudy Hopedale. In that satirical novel, senior New Yorker editor Jeffrey Frank sends two equally self-centered characters bumbling through the same comical plot.
Today, he tells us how he pulled off the multiple narrator trick in my deceptively simple feature, Five Easy Questions.
In the spirit of Jack Nicholson's mad piano player, I run a weekly set of quality interviews with writing pioneers—delivering some practical, unexpected advice about web writing.
Jason Boog:
Your book takes two incredibly different narrators and drops them inside a complicated, hilarious political scene. Technically, that must have been a logistical nightmare to write. How did you map out the two POVs in this book and ultimately weave them together? Any outlining tips for fledgling writers looking to pull off this complicated trick?
Jeffrey Frank:
You're right; it was at times a nightmare. Continue reading...
Narrator maestro, Jim Dale is coming! Narrator virtuoso, Jim Dale is coming! Narrator genius, Jim Dale is coming!
The entling and I snagged our tickets yesterday.
Apparently he is only touring a handful of cities and one of my favorite independent bookstores, Blue Willow Bookshop, got him!!!!
Related: Apparently I live in one of the Harry-est Towns in America!
Heartbreakingly beautiful. How blessed you both are to have such wonderful people at her school.
As difficult as her situation is, how lucky you are to be surrounded by people who care and are helpful. I hope that will always be the case (the helpful people - hopefully the situation will become less difficult as time goes on)
nowheymama-These people are amazing. I am their fans for life.----Chris,Thanks. If not for these people at Daughter's school, I would be a basket case. Food is such a highly charged topic, since it's important to sustenance, celebrations and traditions. Thankfully we've had more positive experiences than negative. For that, I am so grateful.
You are so lucky to have a school like this for your daughter. And they're lucky to have you, a parent who keeps them posted and works with them. Not to mention how lucky your daughter is to have you.
My sisters in Toronto have kids who go to nut-free schools. Glad to hear your school and you and your daughter are so on top of things. :)
Great post -- my niece has celiac disease, and she is so great about it. I am in awe of her.