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Clued In: How Mysteries Unlock Writing and Logic Skills

Raven Gallows, my 12-year-old sleuth, is no stranger to logical thinking. In The Secret of Moonrise Manor, Raven is tasked with solving the mystery of a mummified corpse that falls out of a wall at the Moonrise Manor Hotel. As she pieces together clues about stolen art, a secret society, and her own family’s past, Raven is essentially following a process akin to the scientific method. She makes…

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FREE TANGRAM Lesson Plans!

The Quest for a Tangram Dragon is a delightful new book written by my friend Christine Liu-Perkins. Published by Bloomsbury Children’s books, this delighful tale introduces children to the classic Chinese Tangram Puzzle. Brave little triangle is on a quest to find a dragon to save his land from the terrible drought. Along the way he meets other shapes who want to help. Using the magic of…

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The Mess Behind the Book

Are you a plotter or a discovery writer? Can you guess what I am?

I’m writing a new book. (It’s a sequel to The Secret of Moonrise Manor.) And I thought I’d let you see how organized and brilliant I am. How I get up in the morning ready to write because the characters spoke to me and gave me just the right words. How my fingers fly over the keyboard spewing literary genius onto the screen. or NOT! I am NOT a discovery writer who magically feels the story…

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The Book that Broke My Arm (and was worth it!)

Writing Mary Anning and Paleontology for Kids was a dream come true. I have always been fascinated with fossils, dinosaurs. and prehistoric life of all kinds. Growing up in Kansas I spent hours scrambling over road cuts collecting brachiopods and crinoids. (Yes, I had the most patient parents in the world!) and read everything I could get my hands on about paleontology. When I discovered Mary…

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Wanna Be an Author?

I knew I wanted to be a writer after I read my first Nancy Drew. I wanted to make up the mystery AND be the one to solve it. Who else gets to do that but an author? I filled school notebooks with stories and dreamed of my books being on library bookshelves. But my life as an author got delayed by, well, life. It wasn’t until after marriage, babies, career changes, cancer, my husband’s death,…

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Hanging with the Librarians!

I'm headed to MASL this weekend!

I am super excited to be headed to MASL this weekend. (That’s the Missouri Association of School Librarians conference.) I love hanging out with people who love books as much as I do. I’ll be doing three workshops �� so if you are attending the conference – please come visit me!!! I’ll be teaching Library Alchemy on Sunday morning at 10:30am. We’ll be talking about how to pair fiction and…

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The LIBRARY MONSTERS are Here!!

Teaching Library rules was never more fun. Check out the new book by Jean Ransome and Stephanie Bearce

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Reviving Creativity

“Coloring pencils creative background“/ CC0 1.0 Are you a creative? Do you write, sew, paint, sing, cook, or craft? Do your fingers itch to create? Does your mind bubble with ideas? Being a creative person usually fills life with joy and adventure. Until the day it doesn’t. Every creative has dry spells. The blank page stares back with no words or pictures. The ideas feel flat or nonexistent.…

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Retreat to Renew

I’d been feeling a little gray. Lifeless and leafless as the trees outside. My creativity sunk in the March mud. How could I pull myself out of my winter funk? A writer’s retreat! With the help of my writing buddy Nicki Jacobsmeyer, we gathered 13 brilliant brains in a castle on the lake and found renewal. We also found wine, chocolate, stories about wild west romance, a magical flying caravan,…

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Hippy Hoppy Spring! FREE Lesson Plan!

Hippy Hoppy Spring! FREE Lesson Plan!

Looking for a fun spring read-aloud? Look no further! Hippy Hoppy Toad by Peggy Archer is just the story you’ve been hopping to read!

This book of rolicking rhyme will have your little ones  begging to go outside on their own toad hunt. And what better way could there be to celebrate spring than with toads and rhymes? How about with a free lesson plan and worksheets to go with that great book?

I’…

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C is for Christmas! F is for Free Lesson!!

C is for Christmas! F is for Free Lesson!!

I was looking for a cute Christmas book to give to some of the young people in my life and I fell in love with C IS FOR CHRISTMAS by Michelle Medlock Adams. This sweet rhyming book not only tells the story of Christmas, but it also includes secular and family traditions of the holiday. It is the perfect book to give as a gift AND to use in a Christian or Homeschool Classroom.

A trip through the…

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Meet Author Nancy Churnin!

Meet amazing author Nancy Churnin and download a free five lesson author study unit, including worksheets!

Nancy Churnin writes the most wonderful biographies. They are stories that show the heart and soul of the individual, stories that inspire readers to be their best self and stretch for their dreams. Books like Manjhi Moves a Mountain – about a man who literally moved a mountain one bucket at a time, to help the people of his village. Or the lovely story of William Hoy and how a deaf baseball…

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Great Books Great Lessons!

Great Books Great Lessons! Free Lesson Plan - Compare/Contrast Nonfiction Science books

Two fantastic books have been recently released that teach children about deep sea exploration and teachers should be jumping with joy. These books are fun to read, full of great scientific facts, and the perfect pair to use for a compare and contrast lesson. 

OTIS AND WILL DISCOVER THE DEEP by Barb Rosenstockis a wonderful book that tells about the two men crazy enough to think they could explore…

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Diversity in Kidlit

Photo by Burst on Pexels.com

Own voices.  We Need Diverse Books. – the conversation about diversity in kidlit is growing and hopefully gaining momentum. I had the amazing opportunity to hear Cynthia Leitich Smith speak on this topic at the Kansas/Missouri SCBWI conference and she had great ideas and advice.

As a former teacher and school counselor, I have been a proponent of diversity in…

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Make Some Friends

Photo by Helena Lopes on Pexels.com

Everybody wants to know how to get ahead in the writing world.  Should I have a blog? Get a million twitter followers? Send presents to the editors? The truth is there are only two things that will help you as a writer. The first is to learn to be the very best writer you can be. Go to classes, conferences, and retreats. Learn all you can, revise, rewrite, and…

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We Need Diverse Books AND MORE!!

We Need Diverse Books AND MORE!!

This is an important week for appreciating and sharing the diversity of the United States of America. On Monday we celebrate a true hero of diversity – Martin Luther King Jr. and on Friday we inaugurate our 45th president. What an excellent time for all of us to pause and reflect on the progress we have made, and the work we still need to do.

America is certainly not a perfect country and we have…