Vice President Joe Biden and Education Secretary Arne Duncan visited Jackson Middle School in Orlando this morning. Know why? Because Jackson is an outstanding school. And know why it’s an outstanding school? Because my sister Marilee works there. If you read this blog, you probably recognize Marilee’s name. She practically raised me, taking care of […]
Is it March 31 already!? Seems like an April Fool’s joke! This sure has been a busy – and rewarding — month for Hanni and Beth: Safe & Sound. In one month, Hanni and I visited five elementary schools, two libraries, one health education center, one teacher education center, and appeared at one author-illustrator night. […]
Hanni and I like to think of ourselves as divas, but I gotta admit – it’s pretty unusual for us to ever appear on television. And it’s very unusual for us to be on TV two days in a row. In fact, that’s never happened before. Until last week, that is. Last Wednesday morning Hanni […]
Last Tuesday morning a volunteer from Sit Stay Read! (SSR) braved the snow to chauffeur Hanni and me to a southside Chicago Public school. Sit Stay Read! uses volunteers and their dogs to bring the joys of reading to little kids, and it was our turn to make a school visit. In order for a […]
During school presentations, I show schoolkids how I read Braille. I tell them how I listen to books on tape. I explain how a talking computer works and describe the way I use a screen-reader to read email messages and check out newspaper articles online. The kids learn I can’t read print. So when teachers […]