And now, for something completely different ...

Just another quick post of some people who have made an amazing career of thinking outside the box ... have you ever heard of the Red Hot Chilli Pipers?  Well, mix rock and roll with bagpipes and you have a truly amazing experience!  My sister posted a clip on Facebook, and when I looked at their schedule, I found out that they will be in Peoria August 27 - next Friday - so guess where I will be?

It also made me think about the genesis of big things --- who knew, really, when these guys took up their traditional instrument, that it could and would turn into something so far from the original, traditional idea?  What are our kids doing in school - or NOT getting to do in school - that could eventually turn out to be something amazing, especially something that no one had conceptualized before?  I really think the educators and parents of today need to fight to retain a place for creative and divergent thinking in the schools.  I was watching an episode of Boston Legal the other night, and one of the cases was about the mother of a high school student suing the school because of the amount of pressure put on kids these days. Points were made about how the need to succeed has pushed kids to become test-taking machines just to get into the best colleges, and how cheating has become so rampant in our colleges and universities, for much the same reason.  Learning itself has been pushed out of much of school, and I find that very sad, and very limiting.

What a downer!  So if you want a little lift, click on that link and listen to some of the most amazing music I'll bet you've heard in a long, long time.  And get those proposals in for the conference!

A Really SMART Conference!

Okay, just a short posting, but a very important one - we have Smartboards for the conference!!!  So get those proposals in, folks!

M.T. Anderson's Next Novel

I finished M.T. Anderson's book, Feed, on the flight home from Grapevine Texas today, and I have to say, I loved this book. (I don't know if my roommate would concur, though, as I interrupted her own reading several times with something along the lines of "Oh, I just have to read this one part to you. Is that okay?") And my apologies to Mr. Anderson: in an interview with him at the end of the book, he disagrees that the book is futuristic, but he says something much more astute. I'll let you know what that was tomorrow, but I'm not going to unpack tonight.

So my point is this: while I liked the ending, it also left me wanting something in particular, and I think if you read the book, you might want the same thing. I would like to request that M.T. Anderson write, as his next novel, a sequel to this one titled Feedless. Read Feed - you'll understand.

I'm going to post a couple of pictures from the I.R.A. leadership workshop here. Of course, if you go to Texas, you MUST have honey cornbread in the shape of the state. And Susan Cisna and I wore t-shirts from one of our local councils, Northwestern Illinois Reading Council, so a big shout out to our reading professionals in northwestern Illinois! We also had the opportunity to meet with I.R.A.'s president-elect, Vickie Risko, and spent some wonderful time collaborating with her and exchanging information about our two organizations. I love these meetings, when we can be really productive and enjoy ourselves with fabulous people!

Can't Stop Reading It

Hello Folks,

In my quest to read every book by every author who is coming to the 2011 IRC conference, I'm in the middle of M. T. Anderson's Feed, and all I can say is that it is the furthest thing from a yawn banquet you can imagine!

I feel an explanation is in order. First of all, why am I 'greeting' you from Grapevine Texas? Well, those of you familiar with the Illinois Reading Council may know that the local council leaders have an opportunity every summer to attend a leadership retreat at Grand Bear Lodge in Utica, close to Starved Rock State Park. The state level organization organizes this so that local council leaders may learn more about their positions and have some dedicated time to plan out their year's events. I mentioned this in the previous posting. Well, guess what? The International Reading Association does the same thing for state level organizations. This year they brought us to Grapevine, Texas, just outside Dallas, and we are spending time setting goals and making plans for the rest of the year ourselves. It's great to get to interact with folks from other state and provincial councils, to share ideas and try to problem-solve collaboratively, and we greatly appreciate the opportunity that the I.R.A. provides us to do so.

Now for the explanation of the yawn banquet. Feed is futuristic, and in this future, the internet is implanted into people's brains, I believe at birth. And it's proactive. If you go to a store and look at soccer balls, it will automatically send your brain ads for soccer balls and personalize the sales pitch. Spooky, huh? Well, the story is told from the point of view of a teenage boy, and as you can imagine, teenage boy 'language' is an entity unto itself. Anything boring is referred to as a 'total yawn banquet.' If a girl is pretty, she is 'youch,' and if she is REALLY pretty, she is 'meg youch.' And even though the topic is serious, this is a hilarious book. M. T. Anderson slips in just enough humor to make the reader look forward to the rest of the humor while still being able to concentrate on the story line. I can't wait to meet this author in March!

The opportunities for talking about vocabulary are rife in this book, though there is also some language that would be deemed objectionable by some folks. But I can't help myself - I can't stop reading it! I have to go attend another meeting in a few minutes, and I am so tempted to slip Feed into my bag and slip it out when no one is looking.

Annual Leadership Retreat

Just got back from the IRC Leadership Retreat that we hold each summer in support of our local councils' officers. From what I could see, everyone had a wonderful time and got lots of planning done for the upcoming year. Local councils were able to come up with some great ideas for increasing their memberships and involving more people in their events as well as planning the events themselves. AND I got to give away two books by authors who are coming to the conference! Some lucky person will receive a free copy of Bad News for Outlaws, by Vaunda Micheaux Nelson, and another will receive a free copy of When You Reach Me, by Rebecca Stead. The local council representatives who won these will give them away to a new member who has never been to the conference; those two people will present their tokens at registration (at the conference) and receive their prizes. I know it may seem a little complicated, but there are three reasons for doing it this way: providing door prizes for local councils to give away helps them with their events, a door prize that can only be collected at the conference might encourage someone to register (I know - it's just a book, but hey! It's a great book, and it's free!) and giving away these books promotes the authors who are coming to the conference.

Once again, we set up the BOX display that my husband had made for the IRC conference last spring, and my thanks to all of the good folks who helped with any aspect of this -it's always quite an undertaking, but so worth the effort. Also, HUGE thanks to the IRC office staff, who did all of the collating / printing / packing / organizing of materials (and candy!) and especially to Bobbi Sjenost, our intrepid IRA Regional Coordinator, who planned the whole thing, right down to the last detail. A wonderful time, and a productive one as well. A terrific addition this year was a session on technology - Tracy Turasiak helped local councils create Facebook pages in order to add a level of communication with their membership, and I believe some folks also started blogs and web pages. This will bring our communication further into the scope of reaching more members than we might have been doing before.

Anyone reading this blog who might be considering running for office for your local council, please go right ahead and take that step. And when you do, mark your calendars for next July for the IRC Leadership Resort at Grand Bear Resort in Utica. It's a great chance to get your questions answered about your office and to get your council's events for the year all planned out. Oh, and did I mention Membership Grant money? And the motivational speaker? And the book sale? And the indoor water park? Really, the guidance that this organization provides to new leaders is phenomenal. New officers understand their roles much better after attending Leadership, and all it costs you is your time. (Unless you stop at one of the wineries down the road.)

As for the conference, there are a few speakers who were not included in the printed version of the conference preview distributed at the conference last March, but within a few weeks, their information should be included in the online version of the preview. I'll post something in the blog when that's been amended.

I would encourage you to submit those proposals for presenting at the conference. I know the deadline seems years away, but it's only September 1st!

Did I mention that at the book sale at Leadership I purchased a copy of Harrius Potter? Yes, that's Harry Potter in Latin!

Cindy

Love and Leadership

Well, the past few weeks have been a blur because my stepdaughter was just married this past weekend! Even as a stepmother, I had lots to do to get ready for the event, and it was even more wonderful than I'd imagined it could be. So today I've been trying to ready myself for the annual Illinois Reading Council Leadership event for this week - I need to leave tomorrow afternoon in order to be at the Grand Bear Lodge in Utica Illinois and will be there until next Friday. Leadership is always a fun event, though it's full of hard work! Local council officers have the opportunity to learn more about their offices and to plan events for the year as well as get ready for the annual conference in March the following year. Here are a couple of photos of some of the folks who attended last year.

Anyway, in a previous post I indicated that my goal would be to read EVERY book by EVERY author who will be at the 2011 conference. I've been balking at that a little bit, I will admit - quite a lofty goal I set for myself! And I'm not sure how to keep track of it - but I'm sure something will come up. Meanwhile, I'll just let you know in this blog about the books I'm reading.

Tonight I read Jane Yolen and Mark Teague's How Do Dinosaurs Say I Love You? and what an adorable book! I know Jane and Mark have teamed up for an entire series of "How Do" dinosaur books, and I do intend to read them all, but this one will really make you fall in love with it immediately. The dinosaurs in each illustration are different from each other, which at first I didn't understand, but then I realized that ... yes, our little 'dinosaurs' can seem like entirely different beings from moment to moment. And the wonderful thing about the different dinosaur illustrations is that each is identified on the page (and the inside of the front jacket). You and your students will learn a lot of new dinosaurs - I had never heard of most of them. Neovenator, Ouranosaurus, and Kentrosaurus, to name a few. At first I thought maybe Jane and Mark had created them out of their own imaginations, but I looked them up - so can your students!

Managing a Blog (and a self!)

Okay, I have been really bad about keeping up this blog, and I apologize. But I've learned something valuable over the last two months, since I've been absent from posting. I'm sure you are aware that there are often unintended consequences with whatever it is you undertake, and that's what's happened here. First of all, my two purposes for this blog were as follows: let people know more about the speakers coming to the 2011 IRC conference, and let potential other vice-presidents know about the process of planning the conference so that they can decide whether or not it's something they want to undertake. So here's the third thing that has happened that I did not expect: I have learned just how much pressure it can be on a person to maintain a blog.

Now I know some people think it's no big deal; you just hop on your computer and 'talk' away. And it's certainly not that I have a problem with writing - I could write all day, if need be. It's just that this blog is supposed to be serving more of a purpose than just to be an outlet for my chatting. I feel that what I post here should have some substance and serve one of the two initial purposes I set for the blog, and to tell the truth, I have not had time lately to pull together the kind of information that should be posted. I am a Department Chair at a University, so I work during the summer, and I also try to have a garden (a HUGE one), and this spring and summer have more landscaping areas to put in around our home, and my stepdaughter is getting married in a few weeks. Add all the storms to that this summer (which means I have to unplug my computer, hence no internet) and guess what else? Jury duty next week!

So I have felt guilty about not posting more on the blog, and today I feel guilty for not having good information for whoever happens to be following, but I figured that anything would be better than nothing. THIS IS NOT AN ABANDONED BLOG! That's the most important thing I can post today.

When I met him at IRA, Frank Serafini said I should send him the link to this blog and he would tweet it (or whatever you do with twitter), but at the moment I'm too embarrassed to do so. (More pressure.) I'll do that after I actually get something of substance posted.

And those storms? I hear thunder now, even as I'm typing. Gotta unplug the computer. So long for today .....

Some Special People

This year the I.R.A. convention was held in Chicago. That turned out to be especially fortuitous for the I.R.A. members from Illinois for two reasons: first of all, more of them could go to the convention because travel was less expensive; also, the Illinois Reading Council won five I.R.A. awards this year, so more Illinois members got to go to the awards ceremony to see the awards bestowed! Way to go, Illinois - you continue to be top-notch in your dedication to professional development! The I.R.A. convention will return to Chicago in 2012, and I'm sure the Illinois Reading Council will be big winners again!

The I.R.A. convention boasted some of the same speakers we will have in 2011: Jane Yolen, T.A.Barron, Diane Barone, Cindy Middendorf, and Frank Serafini were all there. (Honestly, check out Dr. Serafini's page - is there anything that man can't do?) I didn't get a chance to talk with Diane and Jane, but I did get to talk with both Frank and Tom for a bit. Whenever I'm in a position to speak with someone 'of greatness,' I feel like I shouldn't be taking up their time, but these two were awesome in their kindness! I had spoken with Jane Yolen last year at I.R.A. and Diane Barone this year at the Michigan Reading Association conference, and they were both wonderful as well. (I have not met Cindy Middendorf yet, but she's got a great first name!) It's always good to know we have nice people coming to our conference, isn't it?

Remember my last post? If not, scroll down and give it a skim - it refers to my cousin and his daughter, Sophia, who is giving us her 'librarian look' in the picture. Anyway, she woke up one morning and wrote a poem about a dragon about whom she had dreamt. So when I met T.A. Barron, who has a Merlin’s Dragon Trilogy, I wanted to show her poem to him. That’s what I’m holding in the picture here. I was going to ask him to sign it, but I had already asked him to sign two books for Sophia, and there were others in line, so I nixed that idea. Maybe another time, like next March, in Illinois!

That's What I'm Talking About!

Okay, now that the 2010 conference is over, I'll be adding to this blog about once a week. And what a wonderful conference we had in 2010! I hope you got a chance to go. Susan Cisna identified fabulous speakers to invite; as usual, the office staff did an amazing job of organizing and facilitating the conference; and the teachers, authors, and other professionals who led sessions were nothing short of remarkable.

For this blog, I have to share with you something that happened last week. It is predicated, unfortunately, on the passing of my legendary uncle, Richard "Uncle Buddy" Nitsche. He and my aunt and their children lived most of their lives in Lake Bluff, and a trip to their house was always fun for us as kids. Those trips were also punctuated by a drive through the beautiful Lake Forest, and also by Uncle Buddy's chuckles. That's what comes to mind immediately when I think of him: chuckles leaking out around the sides of his pipe. He was an amazing sailor and won repeated awards for his skills in the Regatta. So his passing prompted my brother Mike and I to make a quick drive to Collierville, Tennessee, where my aunt (his wife) and cousins Rick and Sue and Sue's husband now live. Other family members joined us, including my cousin Chris and his lovely wife, Mel, and their fifth-grade daughter Sophia.

Just a few days prior to this trip, I had made a goal for myself of reading every book that every author comingto the 2011 conference had written (with the possible exception of Jane Yolen - do you KNOW how many books she's written?) and I had just begun Patrick Carman's

The Dark Hills Divide. My brother and I had a chance to have Sophia in our car for a short drive to the coffee shop, and I asked the question I ask most kids: "So what are you reading these days?" She gave me a whole list of books to investigate, explaining to me how much she loves reading. Sophia is an adorable wisp with an adult vocabulary and logic that surpasses most people three times her age. I asked her if she had ever read Patrick Carman's The Dark Hills Divide, and her animated reply was that she and her family had listened to the audio book version during their drive from Savannah to the Memphis area! After some discussion about the characters (I was not far along enough in the book to know anything about her favorite character - the squirrel, Murphy, but she made me look forward to meeting him), we decided that it would be a good idea to take her picture with my copy of the traditional form of the book and her copy of the audio book - and she offered what she calls her 'librarian' look to top it off. Isn't she adorable?

Anyway, one part of next year's conference theme, "Literacy Outside the Box," refers to differing formats of 'reading' and 'writing.' Although Sophia and her family experienced what happened with Alexa and Bridewell through a different medium than I did, we still experienced the same story. I'm not advocating doing away with written text - rest assured of that - but there are different cognitive requirements for decoding through listening than there are through making visual contact with symbols on a page. We've known for a long time that the right listening skills can make a huge difference in what we 'get' from what we 'hear;' now that technology is expanding how much listening we do, do we need to identify those skills even more specifically? And what are some new ways in which we can utilize audio resources with our students? I'd love to see some conference proposals related to this topic.

And I'd love to find out what happens with Alexa in her next adventures in the land of Elyon, so I'm heading to the bookstore today!

Deadlines, and Speakers Outside the Box

Deadlines:

It's Saturday night, and I have spent the entire day writing and revising material for the Conference Preview. It is February 13, 2010, and this conference is scheduled for 13 months from now, but we advertise the upcoming conference at the current conference. That means the materials have to be done earlier than you might expect; they have to be sent to printing in time to be ready to distribute at the conference the year prior. My deadline for materials to be done and sent to printing is four days from now.

What's making it so difficult to meet these deadlines? Well, work, for one. I have a very demanding job, as most educators do, and it takes a lot of time. Another problem - and one that I hadn't anticipated - is that many authors and other featured speakers will not commit to a booking more than a year away from the event. Of course as you just read, we need to have them lined up earlier than that. And that conference preview is a great marketing tool for us, so it is best to have all of the big names in it. I've checked out the conference previews for the past three years, and they all have around 30 people's pictures and biographies in them: so far I have 15. I'm not overly worried about it: we can still get great people to come after the printing deadline, and add them to the Preliminary Program, and I can tell you all about them in this blog. But it would make me feel a little odd to be the one Vice President who had to go to a four page conference preview instead of an eight-pager!

Speakers Outside the Box

One of the practices we like to follow at IRC is to not discuss the next year's conference until the current year's conference is over. That way people won't get confused (and possibly let down) about when which speakers will be attending. By the time anyone discovers this blog and starts to read it, though, the 2010 conference will most likely be over, so I can go ahead and let you know right now about a few of the exciting speakers we will have scheduled for 2011. Should I tell you about them all right away? Nah. I won't. But I will tell you about one in particular tonight because I have discovered even more about him myself today and am even more excited that he will be joining us. His name is T.A. Barron, and he hails from Colorado. He writes mostly fantasy books for young adults - he has a series on Merlin and a trilogy on The Great Tree of Avalon. He says he has written most of life, but didn't get serious about trying to do it for a living until he was already the president of a company. He had a sort of epiphany one day and walked out of a board meeting to go be a writer. Cool, huh!

This year he is going to be a featured speaker at the International Reading Association's annual conference in Chicago at the end of April, and I am going to do my best to get to meet him and chat with him. But I already know what sets him apart from others and why he represents someone who is 'outside the box' on his own terms: he believes there is a hero in all of us, and that includes every kid. That feeling of the potential for heroism permeates his work. On top of that, he has created an award in honor of his mother, who was his hero. Every year, he gives out ten awards, the Barron Prize for Young Heroes, to young people who demonstrate heroic leadership in service projects. You can watch a short video in which T.A. and one of the recipients are interviewed here. I am looking forward to having someone with such a positive outlook about today's youth join us in 2011.