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ALA Award Winners

Newbery – When You Reach Me  by Rebecca Stead

Caldecott – The Lion and the Mouse  by Jerry Pinkney

Printz – Going Bovine by Libba Bray

YALSA Nonfiction – Charles and Emma by Deborah Heiligman

Sibert – Almost Astronauts: 13 Women Who Dared to Dream by Tanya Lee Stone

All The Awards

MARTY RHODES FIGLEY

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Author: 3913 Keith Place, Annandale, VA 22003 703-941-9572
E-mail: pflashmart@cox.net
Books: Seven books (three easy readers) including:
  • The Schoolchildren's Blizzard (about the horrific blizzard that swept across Nebraska in 1888 and how teacher Minnie Freeman led her students to safety during the storm).
  • Saving the Liberty Bell, Spanish edition--Salvar a la Campana de la Libertad (how eleven-year-old John Mickley helped prevent the Liberty Bell from being melted down for ammunition by the British during the Revolutionary War).
  • Washington is Burning! (about the burning of Washington during the War of 1812 from the view point of Paul Jennings, James Madison's 15-year-old African-American slave and personal valet. Paul Jennings later wrote the first White House memoir).
  • Prisoner for Liberty (about 15-year-old James Forten, African American Revolutionary War hero) will be published March 2008.
Fee: Washington, D.C. area. $350 for one 50-minute presentation. $500 for two back-to-back presentations. Fee negotiable for longer sessions, and out of town appearances.
Availability: Grades 2 and 3 (maximum three classrooms, 90 children per presentation). Fees negotiable for out of town appearances.
Features: I know how to use humor to enliven a talk and to captivate a young audience. I tell the children how I became a writer, and urge them to discover their writer within. We talk about history and historical fiction and their similarities/differences. I discuss my research techniques and the wonder of primary sources. I share why I chose to write the books I did and give the children tips on where to find their own ideas. I show my very messy brainstorming pages, rough drafts, edited pages, and proofs to help explain how a book is created. A question and answer session will follow my talk. The purpose of my presentation is to inspire young people to write.

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