Not what is, but what if

My oldest is working on writing a story and having a hard time getting started. I thought it might provide some inspiration for her to watch an interview with a children's/young adult author. The Kennedy Center has live and archived educational web broadcasts mostly geared for grades 4 - 8. (You have to register as an educator, but it is free to access.) One of the first broadcasts was an interview in 2004 with Richard Peck. The program lasted about and hour and was very engaging. Several times during the interview he stated that books are "not about what is but what if." He talked about how he developed a story, why he writes about history and how he finds names for his characters. I hope it has encouraged her to keep pursuing her story, but the first question after it was over was

"Can we go to the library and get some of his books?"

The title that she was most interested in was Here Lies The Librarian, she thinks that one sounds really funny. It's not released til the 20th of April, however.

There are a couple of other author interviews at the Kennedy Center site and I found some shorter author interview clips at the Reading Rocket site. These are broken down into 1-2 minute clips where the author talks on a specific topic. Total time is about 15 minutes and there are links to a short biography and a list of books the author has written. Thirty-six author interviews are on the Reading Rocket site.

More internet learning today - listening to Chinese Pod, a pod-cast to learn Chinese. I guess we are jumping on the higher-tech education bandwagon.

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