LITERACY: PASSPORT TO THE WORLD, California Reading Association PDI at Sonoma State University

Caroline at the Signing Table

I just got back from the California Reading Association PDI at Sonoma State (November 1-2) where I gave a talk and did a book signing. It was a great event and I met many teachers and librarians--at my session, the signing table, at the author meet and greet, on the exhibit floor, and at the California Young Reader Medal dinner on Saturday night where Alma Flor Ada was the featured speaker.  My talk, Think Outside the Book, focused on links to Common Core and on projects and activities teachers and kids can do in the classroom to reinforce reading and enhance the content of the book.  In my handouts I included links to many projects, most of which can also be found on this blog and on my website.

Caroline with the Heinemann representative

I always enjoy going to CRA.  It was a full program and with so much going on, impossible to attend everything but I did as much as I could.  In the exhibit hall I had the chance to meet the rep for Heinemann, which publishes the Fountas Pinnell Leveled Literacy Intervention program.  My new book, Octopus, Escape Artist of the Sea, is part of that reading program.

Gretchen Woelfle

I want to thank Nancy Rogers-Zegarra and Lynn Gurnee and all the hardworking CRA committee members for all the organization of the conference.  I also want to thank Sandra Yoon for coordinating the author signing and making the colorful posters for our spots at the signing table.

Patricia Newman, Alexis O'Neill, Marsha Diane Arnold

The program included fifteen other children’s book authors and it is always fun to talk and compare notes.  Coincidentally, three of the other authors Alexis O’Neill, Gretchen Woelfle, and Jeri Ferris were once students in my writing class at UCLA.  Now they are all well known and prolific authors and we are colleagues.

Jeri Ferris

At the CYRM dinner numerous people received awards, including my good friend Jeri Ferris who was honored with the Armin Shulz Literacy Award for promoting social justice in her books.  The first place winners of the CRA student writing contest were invited to the dinner and read their essays aloud.  The youngest of the prize winners, a first grader, concluded his essay: “I like books because reading makes me happy.”  Reading makes me happy too.