Our beloved Bay Area Book Festival is back with another exciting event: Berkeley #Unbound, an all-day, free virtual mini-festival with, of course, two riveting youth programs. On Sunday, October 4 we will kick-off at 11:00 am with PROTEST + PRINT: Girls Using Words and Pictures for Activism with Girls Garage founder, builder, humanitarian design activist Emily Pilloton. Emily will be in conversation with HyeYoon Song, artist and educator and lead instructor for Girls Garage’s Protest + Print cohort, and Malaya Conui, student and visual artist. At Girls Garage in Berkeley, girls use power tools to build the world they want to see. But a different kind of world-building also takes place at Girls Garage: the kind that creates a vision for a better and…
Mina Witteman – author | editor | mentor | teacher of creative writing
Posts from the “Children’s books” Category
It was a steep learning curve, this shelter-in-place pivot from an in-person book festival to an online happening. Instead of two glorious days in May in downtown Berkeley, we worked round the clock to get at least part of our line up ready for an online happening. And not just a two-day online festival. We managed to get two and a half months of just beyond incredible book programs to you via our YouTube Channel. What can I say about the children’s and YA programming? I learned new skills every single day. I am out of this world grateful to the entire technical team that made it possible for me to produce 30 just absolutely delightful and insightful programs for young audiences. This post is…
Tagged: abigail hing wen, aimee lucido, andrea zuill, anna-marie mclemore, anne nesbet, annie barrows, babfunbound, Bay Area Book Festival, Baybookfest2020, brian weisfeld, carol anderson, caroline paul, Children's Books, Cindy Derby, Cinnamongirl, colin meloy, dashka slater, deborah underwood, elizabeth rusch, Ellen Hopkins, emily pilloton, ernesto cisneros, ian lendler, innosanto nagara, jeff fleischer, Jim Averbeck, kate hosford, kate o'shaughnessy, kate schatz, keely parrack, kitty felde, mae respicio, maggie tokuda-hall, meg fleming, michael genhart, middle grade, miriam klein stahl, misa sugiura, nelly buchet, nikki shannon smith, paola zakimi, Picture Books, Priscilla Burris, rahul kanakia, randy ribay, rebecca hanover, romina garber, scott ostler, shawn harris, sophie blackall, steve metzger, susan szecsi, sydney hanson, yamile saied méndez, yasmeen ismail, Young Adults
What happens to a writer when there is a shelter-in-place edict that shrinks your physical world to proportions of times passé? Not much, I thought. I’ll be fine, I thought. I’m a writer and, by nature, a bit of a recluse. I mostly live in my head. Not that I don’t pay attention to the world around me. I do! A lot. But you won’t find me in the middle of the melee if I can help it. I feel most comfortable observing the world from the peace and quiet of my home. I prefer to take in life as it glides by: who moves where and how and, importantly, why? I look for connections and cross-connections, I analyze, I contemplate, I add perspective,…
Tagged: Berkeley, California, Children's Books, COVID-19, Drawing, Journal, Nature journaling, Shelter in place, Sketching, virus, writing
Founded in 2012, the Dutch National Reading Coalition (Leescoalitie) promotes and stimulates reading in schools in the Netherlands. Every two years, the Reading Coalition publishes an anthology with excerpts from well-known Dutch children’s and young adult books. This year’s edition features an excerpt from Boreas en de vijftien vrienden (Boreas and the Fifteen Friends), the final book of the Boreas series. I am beyond stoked and proud that my book has been chosen to promote reading in schools because… well, this is a children’s writer’s dream! A national acknowledgment that top educators in the Netherlands believe that my book will stimulate students to read. I couldn’t wish for more! The free anthology, Een stuk! Meer (One Piece! More), was published in January 2020 and…
KINDERBOEKENWEEK WORKSHOP MET GROTE BROER! Tijdens de Kinderboekenweek (of daarvoor of daarna!) de wereldkaart van Boreas maken in de klas? Dat kan met Grote Broer Kunsteducatie! Superleuke workshop waar ook nog eens techniek bij aan te pas komt. Helemaal Boreas! “Met de hele klas maken de kinderen de wereldkaart van Boreas na. Het is niet zomaar een kaart, het is een interactieve kaart! De kinderen gebruiken verschillende technieken, zoals LED-lampjes, batterijen en pop-upsystemen. In groepjes werken ze aan de zeven delen. Aan het eind van de workshop worden alle zeven delen samengevoegd tot één uniek verhaal.”
To celebrate my birthday (and because the book is flying out the stores!), my wonderful editor at Ploegsma Children’s Books just let me know they started the next print run for Boreas en de zeven zeeën. So… YAY, birthday! I have also received a copy of the lesson plans that CPNB, the foundation for collective promotion of the Dutch book and organizer of the Dutch Children’s Book Week since 1954, had stellar educators make to support teachers of every elementary school in the Netherlands. Super exciting and I have designed my school visits with these plans in mind, so they seamlessly add to the wonderful work of teachers and their endeavors to promote reading and children’s books in their classrooms. Requests for school…
Writer friends! All friends! I am still glowing from the Bay Area Book Festival, which was a great success in no small part thanks to the brave young women of Cinnamongirl Inc. I approached Cinnamongirl Inc. to find youth moderators for my middle grade and young adult sessions. And I got them! I am so honored to have met Renée Richard and these exceptional girls. I am in awe of what they did, stepping out of their comfort zone and onto the stage, rocking at interviewing accomplished authors. And I’m in awe of how Renée guides the girls to a future brimming with opportunities and possibilities. Now, Cinnamongirl Inc. is kicking off their Write Your Story program. I am reaching out to you,…
