Meg Lippert's iPad app released

Congratulations are in order!

 

Meg Lippert, Director of Storytelling for LEARN WITH HOMER, has been writing for this educational iPad app for the past year.  Designed for children 3-6, the app includes phonics lessons and engaging science units integrated with folk tales, fables, poetry, folk songs, and original stories. It's in the i-tunes app store: LEARN WITH HOMER. A free download link is available on the website. It's already garnering rave reviews, including this one from Forbes.com.   

Meg herself writes, "It's an ambitious, exciting project with enormous potential and has been a lot of fun for everyone involved in creating it!"

 

 

Come See a Play About Youth Literacy (and support Meg Lippert)

WORDS FLY: A play about youth literacy developed by Amy Rider King and Meg Lippert

When: Friday, November 18 at 11 a.m.
Saturday, November 19 at 2 p.m.

Where: Seattle Central Library, Meeting Room 2, 4th floor
1000 Fourth Ave.
Seattle, WA 98104
206-386-4636

Parking: There is a parking garage under the library

WORDS FLY is the culmination of our current project, "Read With Me," which was focused on soliciting from high school students the challenges, and successes, they have faced in their personal lives with respect to learning to read and learning from reading. Student actors from Interagency Academy (the Seattle Public Alternative School program) and from Franklin High School will be performing along with professional actors and musicians. Although Amy and I have been working together with high school students in Seattle for over 10 years, this is our first project focused on literacy.

The play script was developed based on improvisations by the actors inspired by the words of over 100 students we worked with beginning last February, selected from their written assignments or recorded during our interactive workshops in their classrooms. The play uses the interesting architectural structure of the Seattle Public Library as the stage set. Each performance is an hour long, begins promptly, and ends with a "talkback" when the audience will be able to share their impressions of the play and ask questions of the actors.

This is an opportunity to hear directly from local youth about what specifically they love, and hate, about reading. The play was written for a high school audience, and uses elements of scenes we developed for their workshops that particularly engaged and delighted them, since high school students will be attending both performances and they are our primary focus. The performances are free and everyone is welcome.

The "Read With Me" blog at umoensemble.wordpress.com has more information about the actors and the "behind the scenes" team of teaching artists, as well as a post about brief excerpts from the play that several students presented to the Seattle School Board on November 2.

The inside scoop on The Inside Story

SCBWI Western Washington would love to celebrate your new book at The Inside Story, a twice-yearly salon to celebrate the new books of local authors and illustrators.

If you have a book coming out on the Spring 2010 list, you may be eligible to apply for the Spring Inside Story, which will be on Wednesday, April 28, from 6:30-8:30 at Mockingbird Books, 7220 Woodlawn Avenue Northeast, Seattle. Applications are now available on our website and will be taken on a first-come, first-served basis (with priority given to SCBWI members or anyone who has signed up for 2009-2010 SCBWI Western Washington regional programming.)

Please make sure that you meet all the eligibility criteria listed on the website before you apply. Applications must be submitted by email to the email address on the application form.

The deadline for applications is Feb. 20. Please see "Frequently Asked Questions About Inside Story" on the website for additional information about The Inside Story.
We are looking forward to seeing you there!

Meg Lippert
Inside Story Chair

A study of excellence: WHEN YOU REACH ME

The Story Sleuths--our own Meg Lippert, Allyson Valentine Schrier, and Heather Hedin Singh--analyzed Newbery Award winner WHEN YOU REACH ME in November.

If you want to study what makes that book great, check out their lists of posts on the book.

Meg and Allyson: story sleuths

Meg Lippert and Allyson Valentine Schrier have launched a new blog that should be really helpful for all of us trying to figure out what makes a great book tick:

Story Sleuths Goes Online!
What happens when you mix two children's writers with the books they love to read? Story Sleuths--where Meg Lippert and Allyson Valentine Schrier dig for clues to improve their writing, through reading award winning children's literature. Join them as they read a book a month and take turns sharing with one another an insight from each chapter about elements of craft the author used to make the story shine.

Check it out at http://www.storysleuths.blogspot.com.