We would like to invite school librarians to attend the Texas Teens Read! programs at this year's TLA Annual Conference. While designed primarily as a summer reading program for use in public libraries, Texas Teens Read! has potential uses for school librarians as well. The Texas Teens Read! Committee consists of librarians from both public libraries and school libraries. You might consider attending our open meeting Tuesday afternoon and perhaps volunteering in a future year.
On Thursday afternoon, illustrator Emily Fiegenschuh will talk about her illustrations, and manual authors will present programming ideas. This year's manual authors are Deban Becker, Natasha Benway, Monique Franklin, and Kit Ward-Crixell. Deban, Natasha, and Monique will be holding a presentation Thursday afternoon with some great ideas for teen programs. This year's theme is "Time Twistin':TTR.09", and we have some great fantasy artwork by Emily Fiegenschuh. The poster features some time travellers and a dragon; samples should be available at our programs. Please stop by to see posters and bookmarks.
Emily Fiegenschuh's website is http://e-figart.com/ and it includes a gallery of her artwork. Emily Fiegenschuh uses gouache paint for her illustrations. Emily Fiegenschuh is illustrating "The Star Shard", a 9-part story in Cricket magazine; the last part comes out in the April 2009. The first eight parts are available online at http://www.cricketmagkids.com/starshard/ and there is a question and answer section with the artist and illustrator. Emily Fiegenschuh has illustrated several Dungeons and Dragons rulebooks and done other illustrations for Wizards of the Coast (publisher of Dungeons and Dragons) and its imprint Mirrorstone Books. She has done cover illustrations for the Knights of the Silver Dragon series and for two of the "Practical Guide" books. She illustrated the cover of "A Practical Guide to Dragon Riding" and "A Practical Guide to Faeries" and has done interior illustrations for those books, "A Practical Guide to Wizardry", "A Pracical Guide to Monsters", "Draconomicon: Chromatic Dragons", and more. She has also done some illustrations for the Inuit Mythology Initiative.
Emily's publisher sent us 8 copies of "A Practical Guide to Monsters" and 8 copies of " A Practical Guide to Dragon Riding", as well as several bookmarks, to hand out. Come to the Texas Teens Read! illustration program, and see if you are the lucky winner of one of these great door prizes!
You may want to also ask Emily about guinea pigs; she has several pet guinea pigs and fosters guinea pigs looking for homes in Wisconsin. The Texas State Library and Archives Commission's page about Emily's Texas Teens Read! illustrations has a picture of Emily and one of her guinea pigs.
Janway has Texas Teens Read! incentives available (scroll halfway down the page to get to the teen section). The ordering deadline is March 20, with items to be delivered the week of May 4. The Janway website mentions that items may be purchased by TLA members, Texas schools, Texas libraries, and Texas librarians, so you do not have to be a public librarian to order items of potential interest to your teen students. Bookmarks, certificates, and posters from the Texas State Library and Archives Commission (TSLAC) should be ordered by public libraries, but if you do not have a public library in your area, your school can order items from TSLAC (contact Christine McNew at the TSLAC with questions). You can also see Emily's artwork and download the Texas Teens Read! manual.
Kate DiPronio, librarian at Cedar Valley Middle School, uses Texas Teens Read! ideas during after school programs. "Depending on our theme or time of year, I pull out the section that fits well and modify it to suit my students' interests, time frame and physical space. For example, during a Valentine Day program I used the material from the "Food Fights" chapter of the 2008 manual. My students loved the Name That Candy Bar and Chocolate Candy Guess activities. TTR! provides me with ready-made activities, geared for teens, to pull out whenever needed. Included are a material list, directions, associated websites, and professional resources. What could be better!"
We hope to see you at TLA. The TTRAC open meeting will be Tuesday, March 31, from 4:00 to 4:50 p.m. The illustration session featuring Emily Fiegenschuh will be Thursday, April 2, from 2:00 to 2:50 p.m. The session by the manual authors will be Thursday, April 2, from 3:00 to 3:50 p.m. Both Thursday afternoon sessions will be in the same room so you can stick around for both programs.
Kendra Perkins, TTR Chair
