March 13 - Katie DiCamillo!!

Last October, I heard Kate DiCamillo speak as the Keynote at TCRWP Saturday Reunion. She shared how her story of Flora & Ulysses came to be. As she spoke, I kept thinking that it really is SO important to gather our stories, only the stories we can tell, in our Writers Notebook. Her mother and her mother's vacuum cleaner and that almost dead squirrel found on her front stoop were then used to create this new story. We must, as writers, be like Kate, and keep gathering our stories.Who knows when we might use them!!

After hearing the backstory of this newest book of hers, I immediately bought it on Sunday once I returned to VA and started reading it aloud to my class on Monday. My 4th graders LOVED it. Needless to say, we were excited when this book then won the 2014 Newbery Award and when Kate was named Ambassador of Children's Literature by the Library of Congress.

I'm not sure if anything gathered on this blog over the past 12 days or next 18 days will ever become more than just words on this blog, but I am glad I am gathering my stories that only I can tell.

To view her speech given at the Library of Congress' Ambassador of Children's Literature ceremony where she states: "This happened because of a story.This happened because of a story read out loud, a story read together. So what I want to say to you today is this, stories are a glass-bottom boat ride. We sit together and look together at this world and at the worlds hidden inside of this world and looking together, listening together, helps us to connect. We are able to see each other, we open up, we change." CLICK HERE:  http://mrschureads.blogspot.com/2014/03/video-of-week-kate-dicamillo.html

To learn more about Kate: http://www.katedicamillo.com/