 Hello and welcome to Encompass Live. We show up every Wednesday morning at 10 o'clock central time, whether it's daylight or not, because we have this coming week to get changed. I think so. And we're so glad that you're all here today. In our studio, so to speak, we have Mary Jo Ryan. Hello, everyone. And Rene, read yourself. I'm the head of Public Library. And we also have an audio of Christine Walsh from Carnegie Public Library. You will also be chatting with us about our talk and talk about literature. Go ahead, Christine. Good morning. Great. So I'm going to get the slideshow up. And Mary Jo and Rene and Christine can get started on what all we have to share with you today. Okay. And I'm going to start it from the beginning. It's a good place to start. It was a curate, scary. We're not worried about that. Okay. Okay. Can you see the first slide, letters about literature? Thank you, Sally. That was Sally Snyder. She's our engineer for today. So this is basically a conversation, I hope, about letters about literature, a national contest with a Nebraska flavor. It's all about reading and being inspired by what you read. And then writing back to the author, sponsored by the Nebraska Library Commission, Nebraska Center for the Book, and also the Center for the Book in the Library of Congress. The Nebraska Center for the Book is the Nebraska affiliate of the Library of Congress Center for the Book. So these are the sponsors. As I mentioned, Center for the Book in the Library of Congress, Dollar General Literacy Foundation provides some prizes. Option Bindry here in Nebraska also provides some prizes and sponsors. Chapter's Book Story and Sewer, again a local sponsor, and Humanities Nebraska. Humanities Nebraska sponsors the letters about literature, letter writing clinics, which we'll talk about at the end of this. There are three levels of competition so that we don't have seniors in high school competing against fourth graders. And we do encourage teachers and librarians all across the state to talk with kids about what books made a difference in their lives and encourage them to write a letter to an author in these three categories. Okay, I'm going to just play this video. Somewhere in here, there's a clicker. Well, that's not working. So we just do this. Escape from the, yeah, that's supposed to be alive, but it's not. So we're going to escape from this, but then just build a real thing. That won't work for you. Bear with me, folks. When I was playing this slideshow before that, there was a little thing to go to the video right from there called read.gov. Everybody will know how to get there. That's right. This is all good. Now you know how to find this video when you want to show it to your other librarians. The Center for the Book at the Library of Congress invites students who grade 4 to 12 to enter the letters about literature writing competition, lecture reflected writing skills, write a letter to an author living or dead, explaining how their work changed your view of yourself or your world. When students at the ordinary levels are eligible for prizes from their state Center for the Book, national winners will receive a $1,000 cash reward and national honor winners will receive a $2,000 cash prize. Students can enter one of three competition levels, level one, grades four, five, and six, level two, grade seven, eight, and level three, grades nine, 10, 11, and 12. Entering is easy. Just follow these 10 simple steps. One, select a book that you read, and it should feel all the feel. Essentially, a book that may be kind, tender, and feel something real. Two, imagine staying down with the author at this work and sharing your personal thoughts. Your letter should be from the card, more like a private conversation, either from the book report or a fan letter. Three, take note of these and I'll tell you the book. What makes you laugh? Right. Inspired you. What makes you want to take action? Four, gather your thoughts about what you read and the meaning you took away from the author's words. Five, time to hit the keyboard. All letters must be typed. Remember, spelling, grammar, and creative connections to the challenge of points of view are key to many letters. Six, complete the entry key form and state list your printed letter. Seven, inflow your letter in a large, flat envelope. Eight, write your competition level on the outside of the envelope. Level one, level two, or level three, depending on your grades. Teachers, if you're submitting for more than one level, use a separate envelope for each level. Nine, affix proper dosage and mail your entry to letters about literature, library, and Congress, 101 Indian Avenue, southeast, Washington, DC, 20540-4921. Ten, have your teacher download your participation certificate at read.gov slash letters and share your awesomeness with the world. Teachers are invited to visit our resource page for lesson plans, tips, and to download our free teachers guide. For more information, including your state's content deadline, visit read.gov slash letters. The letters about literature is a reflective writing competition sponsored by the Library of Congress Center for the Book and presented in association with affiliate state centers for the book The Funding, provided by the Dollar General Literacy Foundation. That was a pretty good workaround. Oh, okay. I'm going to have to turn this off or it'll just keep going. Okay. Okay, there we go. All right, folks. Sorry, we're a little bit rusty here. Okay, from Chris. All right. All right. So, Christine, I'll tell us a little bit about this book that was just published by the Library of Congress Center for the Book and should there's some readings. I think this will be a way for folks to get an idea what these letters are like, that the students are writing to these authors. Christine, are you there? I am. This is kind of a fun book. You can see the cover of it there and it was put together. It was edited by Catherine Gurley, who for many, many years until what last year was the coordinator, overseer, master of many things for the Letters about Literature program at the Center for the Book in Washington, D.C. So, this is truly a labor of love and what they've put together are samples of letters that they've received over the years, hoping to inspire people to jump in on this program, but to give you some sense of what these letters look like. So, the first one I pulled out is from The Running Dream by Wendell and Van Drainen and apologies if I mess up that name. He says, I am an adult, but on the inside, I'm stuck at 13. For years, sorry, it's a sheet, she wrote books, sending her manuscripts to publishers and receiving rejection letters, reading Dandelion Wine by Ray Bradbury, triggered an idea not about what to write, but how to write it from the perspective and in the voice of a 13-year-old. That's when things clicked for me, she says. As someone who was stuck at 13, she truly likes kids at age, but she also remembers that middle school was torture and that feeds her stories. As a writer, you are supposed to put your main character in uncomfortable situations, she says, and she does that in The Running Dream. Jessica has lost a leg in a car accident. To make matters worse, Jessica is a runner. In the letter, the student wrote, and this is just one piece of it, I could not put your book down as I was reading. One of the reasons I fell in love with it is that it was so inspiring. You would never think that a girl like Jessica, popular, pretty, and perfect, would become friends with a girl like Rosa who has cerebral palsy and uses a wheelchair. I love how your novel shows that anything is possible if you believe and try. Jessica and Rosa develop a bond that will never break. Your book moved me in a way that no book has ever done before. It gave me hope. So one piece of it. The next one is The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien. This was a middle school entry and one quote out of the letter is, I still imagine my bedroom as a hobbit hole. In a hole, and this is just the intro part, in a hole in the ground, there lived a hobbit, wrote J.R.R. Tolkien. At the time he wrote that sentence, he actually had no idea what a hobbit was. As he began to imagine the world of Bilbo Baggins, he realized that hobbits are just rustic English people made small in size because it reflects, in general, the small reach of their imagination, not the small reach of their courage or latent power. So the student wrote back and said, your book taught me the simple choice of unexpectedly stepping out your door and running down the path, just as Bilbo Baggins instigates an adventure. After reading your book, when my brother called to me to go outside, I smiled and ran out after him, letting the screen door slam, not bothering with socks or shoes. Flying over the moist soil and dry scratchy pine needles, and then later trailing our feet in the fresh waters of the lake, I would laugh and say to Oliver, we're like hobbits running around barefoot in the mushrooms with our big hairy feet. Additionally in this letter, your words and ideas gave me the confidence to climb a mountain to survive middle school to be confident in my success. Your words opened my mind to the wonderful effects of adventure. I thank you for what the hobbit has given me, an expanded scope of imagination, and the ability to find enjoyment in the changes and challenges instead of shying away from them. And then as a high school entry, this student wrote to Amy Tan, author of The Joy Luck Club, and her opening quote is, I too took advantage or take advantage of my mother. In intro information, in 1987, Amy Tan traveled with her mother to visit relatives in China. Tan had often been resentful of her mother when she was a teenager, but on this trip she saw a very different woman. That was Tan's turning point, she says, and adds, I couldn't have written The Joy Luck Club without having been there, that having felt that spiritual sense of geography. Amy Tan had found her past in China, and in doing so found her writer's voice. Just two snippets from this one. My mother left, and this is the youth who wrote back, My mother left Vietnam to come to the United States in 1997 when she was pregnant with me. She still hasn't assimilated to American culture, and even now in 2014, struggles with speaking and learning English. At home she used to speak to me in Vietnamese, and I would answer in English. It's not that I couldn't speak Vietnamese, I understood the basics. It was because I didn't want to. I never took the time to appreciate my mother and to consider her feelings about my behavior and the alienation she felt towards American culture. She grew up in southern Vietnam learning traditional customs, whereas I grew up in Washington D.C. with an entirely different set of beliefs and experiences. I remember always being confused whenever she used common Vietnamese proverbs to give advice. Your novel acted as a catalyst in a bond between my mother and me. I began to meet her halfway in our relationship and put in the extra effort to learn more about her as well as to speak Vietnamese. Although we still aren't close today, and I sometimes take her for granted, I feel accomplished in understanding her and my culture. When reading the Joy Luck Club in sixth grade, I didn't grasp most of the key concepts and themes, but they were the start I needed to understanding the valuable bond between mother and daughter. So those are just some samples of the letters that were sent to different authors to give you some sense of how teachers use this in their classroom and how those books touch the students, which I think is fabulous. Thanks, Kristy. You're welcome. I think that one of the things I thought about when you first read these aloud, and now hearing you read them aloud again, is that there's just no way that you can say that reading doesn't have a huge powerful effect on people if you let it. I mean, here's fiction. In most cases, people are reading fiction, although I guess Joy Luck Club might be closer to a memoir than fiction. But here you are reading something that's a made-up story, and yet it can have such a powerful effect. And I think we see that in these letters that you read each year. And this year, we had someone who actually wrote to an author of a science book. Yeah, that's right. That's right. It was a book about science, and it was pretty cool what he wrote. So, yeah, I mean, I think that this is just more confirmation of something that librarians and teachers know, but it's always good, I think, for us to remind ourselves of this power that reading has, that's stronger. It didn't happen to you from seeing a movie or from other kinds of experiences, but we can count on it happening if you let it when you read a book. I'm sorry, Kristy. No, absolutely. I mean, the power of books is amazing. And even with a fiction book, you know, there are seeds of truth, whether it touches your heart or it's factual woven into those stories. Right, yeah. When people ask me if fiction is true at the library, I would say yes. Yes, it's true. Yeah. Sometimes it seems a lot more realistic than some of the things that are non-fiction. Now, that's a frightening area we're not going to try. Yeah, that's good. So, I think for me, it's called reading fiction part of education. Absolutely. People learn how to empathize and understand the points of view. Sorry. No, I love that. I think Jim for Lisa is amazing. Yes. The next thing we would, we would invite you to do as librarians and school librarians and public librarians is to encourage other people in your lives to think about what author they would write to and what book made a difference in their lives and, you know, what exactly they would say to that author. And we have this little tool which, again, I'm going to have to do this for a minute and this for a minute. This is a... It's a little exercise tool called what would you say. And it's sort of a prep tool. You can use it with students who are thinking about writing that letter to an author for the competition or you can use it with adults that you're trying to encourage to get students involved. So, maybe a group of adults at your book club or a group of teachers sitting around in the teacher's lounge or, you know, you know who the people are. Maybe there's a writer's group in your town who would be willing to try to mentor students who want to enter the contest. But you can sit down and you can do this and basically what it allows you to do is to say, who is the author? What is the book? And then why you loved the book? And here's the kind of the key thing which I apologize, it's hard to read these sort of key messages but it says because it made me reflect on how I reacted. And basically what we're asking is please reflect in these letters. Don't write a book report. Don't tell the story of the book but reflect on what it is about me that might be different because I read that book or what I learned during that time. So this just encourages people to do that, I think. If you have any questions or suggestions this would be a good time to type them into the chat box and Sally will catch them. Or to ask to unmute your microphone and you can speak right up just like Christine was. This is I guess a time when if you have a book that you'd like to share. Christine, how about you? Is there a book that you want to share that the author made a real difference in your life? You could write a letter to that author. Okay right off the top of my head it would probably be Madeline Langel and Wrinkle in Time. It was just one of those books that I can still go back and reread and it touches, I don't know, it touches the heart in a lot of ways. Part of it the wonder of escaping where you are to some place where the imagination can kind of run free and you're not, you're not prejudged maybe by where you are at the time. I'm sure I probably ran into this book, you know, fifth through seventh grade which is not everybody's, okay perhaps middle school's tough. And I think those books that transport us somewhere else even if it's temporarily are really good because it fills your heart up a little bit and then you have perhaps a little more energy and courage to jump back into whatever you're dealing with in life. I have a question Mary-Jill. Sure, this paper that you're showing on the screen that looks really helpful. How can someone get a copy of that to you? We're going to, we're recording this session and when we when we put the recording up on our Encompass Live archived recordings we have a space there where we put the PowerPoint. There will also be a PDF of this handout so you can just print it, use it with your groups, with your students, with anybody, you know, anybody that you think, it's a good thing for adults too. It's not just for kids, it's a great family activity too. Thanks, that makes perfect sense to have a little bit of that. Okay, so can we try to see if we can do this again? Now what do I do? We go back from current slide, look at that. Whoa, magic. That's exactly what we just did. Okay, so Christine is the incoming president of the Nebraska Center for the Book. It says Nebraska Center for the Book Vice President but we know you're really the incoming president, right? So I've been told. Do you want to tell us a little bit about the Nebraska Center for the Book before we go into more detail about letters, about literature, competition? Sure. The Nebraska Center for the Book is, let me just go through the mission statement quickly and then I can talk a little bit more. It brings together the state's writers, booksellers, librarians, publishers, printers, educators, and scholars to build the community of the book. We are the people who know and love books and who value the richness they bring to our lives. So then the goals of the Center for the Book are to share that love of books and bring those members of that community together and reach out to anyone else who's interested. So great events like the Celebration of Nebraska Books and then the Nebraska Book Awards. All of these are open to the public and there are wonderful opportunities to interact with publishers. So if you're writing your great American novel, there are potential publishers out there to interact with. If you want to meet the poet laureate of Nebraska, I mean, yeah, the state poet, pardon me, Twyla Hansen is frequently there, Ted Kuzer. All of these people are extremely approachable and accessible, which is just a great opportunity to interact. So those are part of what we do, but obviously supporting letters about literature, participating in the National Book Festival in Washington, D.C., where we share the wonders of Nebraska literature with thousands and thousands. I don't remember what attendance was this year of attendees that get another view of Nebraska and what is going on in literature around here. We also partner with all kinds of groups, Humanities Nebraska, the Library Commission, of course, to continue the work of the Center for the Book. And we encourage people to get involved in any way that suits you. And if you have questions, certainly give me a holler or Sherry Houston, who's a current president or Mary Jo, and we're happy to share more. Now you attended that idea exchange in Washington, D.C., and found out a lot about Library and Congress resources at that, didn't you? I did. That was a fabulous experience, and I hope to go again this year, but that is where coordinators for the Centers for the Book across the country get together for two days of networking, troubleshooting, program planning, idea sharing. It's two days of work. Someone said, oh, didn't you go touring? It was like, no, there wasn't time for that. But it was wonderful to talk to all kinds of people and hear about the programs they're doing thinking, oh, could we bring this home? Could we partner with somebody else to make that happen in Nebraska? The other thing that it did, the second day, we had guest speakers come in. Most of them, while all of them were supporters of the Center for the Book in one way, shape, or form, whether it's through programming or financial support. Some have resources for us, some had speakers. The gentleman that started the Little Free Library Movement was there, happy to answer questions, had all kinds of goodies on starting your own Little Free Libraries. But the Library of Congress, who of course, where the Center for the Book lives, had people from all their various departments come in and share the wealth of information that the Library of Congress provides to anyone who wants it. So there was someone from the Music Library, from historical documents, from the Copyright Office, visual images. It was just amazing. So I would encourage you to visit the Library of Congress website. They have resources for teachers, librarians, the general public, and it's free. This is our Library of Congress and it is a fabulous resource that we should use often. And you got a library card didn't you? I did. That was my souvenir from Washington, see I was so excited. So you can get a public user card to the Library of Congress, which was exciting. So next time I go back, I think I can get actually on the floor of the Great Reading Room. You can. Yeah, now you have your library card, you are in maybe. Right. And one of the reference librarians said, give me a call, I'd be happy to give you a tour. So, her card's in my wallet. Thanks, Kristy. You're welcome. So, Lorraine, Lorraine Redisall from the Beatrice Public Library. Being Director of the Beatrice Public Library is a big enough job, but you took on the job of being Letters about Literature Coordinator for the State as a volunteer and you never gave it up, did you? Well, I didn't quite mean to have it be gone and on. Kristy was just talking about how inspired she was by going to that whole idea exchange. That's where I walked in on the same kind of deal. I was the incoming president of the Center for the Book over 20 years ago. And when Kristy says you get involved with people in communities and you can find your spot, well, I actually intended to do this for a year to just get it up and started. Yeah, well, I mean, you know, now that Kristy's so interested, I just thought, oh, you know, she's gonna be looking for something to do once she is the president anymore. So, we'll just be happy. You've been warned. Thank you. I was so excited about this and I don't like contests. I don't do bookmark contests. Because normally you have all these losers and a winner or two and everybody else is feeling terrible. But this one I thought was so incredible because it's not argued the smartest kid in the class. Have you read the most books? All of those things. This is what would have book affected you and that love that word reflected that idea that this really matters to someone and so heart has as much to do with this as writing ability. You can write beautifully, but if you're just writing words, it's not the same as what it means something to somebody special. And you won't win. And you know, that's right. Nobody wins when they write a good book report. So that's where we got started from. And I can't remember the important things to tell you. One is we have had two national winners. We had one that was like the second behind the super, super winner. And that was a high school one from Hastings. And then we had a national winner who was from here in Lincoln and was at the other end of the spectrum, the fourth to sixth grade winners. So, we're still out there looking for that middle school senior high winner. But we're happy to have winners all along. I have to say when I first came back and proposed this, I love the spirit of the Center for the Book Board because their big worry was how we find enough money to support sending our winner to Washington DC. And this was our first year. They like I had great faith in our writers in Nebraska. We have a wonderful history of this. We have kids. We have wonderful teachers that can inspire with wonderful librarians that can offer books. And also people can enter this on their own. So it does not have to be through the school. We do try to have this out and particularly for homeschoolers, they can do this on their own. You do not have to go through your school. I didn't realize. And I thought I didn't know if we'd emphasize that yet. And one year we had a high school librarian who had a kid. His home life was such a mess that when his parents played game, they were not married any longer. They played games. Will they or wouldn't they go? Just made the kid about half crazy. And when the mother showed up, we actually had to assign a person to just keep her entertained while we tried to honor the award winner. So you can see sometimes why these books are so important to these kids. There was, of course, imagine there's, we have winners, a winner and an alternate in three categories. So we have six winners a year. So you know that there's lots of stories that go with this. But I do want to mention one where we had, first of all, the judges. We do have two judges in each category. The judge stepped back to me and said, which is having a terrible time making a decision in this category. And I was chosen to with the thought, I get to be the next judge that broke the tie just in case they got into this big fight. And I've never done that yet. Every time I offer it, they go back and somehow resolve the thought that I would be stepping in and making decisions seems to be a big push. But I reminded them of, you know, read them what this was all about. And when they came back, they said, you know, this, this is kind of an unusual choice. But they gave in. So when I called and at that time, this was before the internet was all that popular. And so, so, you know, I told you I've been doing this for a long time. So when I called the teacher, this was a teacher that had previous work there. But he said, I always said, we're reading. Are you kidding me? Of course, I never cared about this contest. This is serious to me. This is not real. So I thought, what do you think I'm kidding? And he said, this kid has been in a special ed until this year. This is the first year he's been mainstreamed. He's never won anything in his life. Wow. And he was just, he said, his parents, everyone's going to be so ecstatic. They're just going to hardly believe it. But he also wanted to know, what's it going to be like for him? Is he going to stand as him? Get awkward. He just fit right in. And I have to tell you the book he wrote, the author, was to Gary Paulson for Hatchity. And he was, I definitely do not read their letters. And I have to tell you, I'm so thankful. I just made that up the first year, thinking, why should this was between them and the author? Why should they read this to the whole world? And it's not a speech contest. So I just said, you know, we do ask when we're handing them their awards, do you want to say something about why you picked this? And just to say to maybe the author, well, when he got up there, I could see it was just time time. And I knew enough about that book for reading it myself that I said to him, you really like honeymoon and he turned and he looked at his dad and he said, I'd love to go hunting with my dad. And it was just this, aw, moment. And you know, if that's the only prize he won, he won it that day because he not only wrote adequately, but he wrote with heart. And I just think that's really important. I will say the other reason I was so thankful the first year that I hadn't said that they're going to read their letter, when our alternate winner had written to Emerson about self-reliance and talked about that she'd been kind of putting suicide before she read that. So if you ever have any doubts, that was year one. I thought, wow, where do we go from here? If you ever have any doubts writing, someone's writing makes a difference as they are the reader hearing, reading what these kids write would make you a believer. I like the idea. I hadn't thought really much about that, but they don't read the letters, but you're right. It is a personal thing. The student and the author. Maybe if we have enough time, I can tell you a little bit about that if you win, the winners that come in, come to Lincoln, they get to meet the governor at a proclamation signing, which is the one for National Library Week. So we always have these wonderful kids as part of National Library Week and ask everyone to honor them as part of the National Library Week activities in Nebraska. And then they get to go to a wonderful restaurant, lately it's been a Nebraska club, which is fun. It's up on the top of a bank building. So look out, see you all over Lincoln. And we do give them their prizes. The governor's already given them their certificate, but we give them prizes, which includes $100 for the winner and $75 thanks to how it's combined for the alternate, which is the alternate. Those people's letters could go off just as easily. And it's a real, and I always have to give them a little speech, sort of like the one of being in this front or up for, you know, if they cannot perform their duties, that your letter will go in. We did have, in California, they couldn't find the winner one year. When they got ready to do that, they moved to Alaska. So you just never know when the alternate might have to become the winner. So it's not, they're not runner up, they are the alternate winner. And so we thought that through very carefully too. And then, and this is the thing that we've been told makes it special beyond what any other state does. They go to the Jane Pope guest team, Heritage and Nebraska authors, and when you see libraries sign a copy of their letter, which I happen to have, because some of these kids have hit delete, and yeah, they don't even have a copy anymore. And they sign their letter, and it's there permanently. And our neat, heartwarming story about that, which is again really true, I don't make this stuff up, is that we had a kid, we boys said, now your letter is there, and it's a permanent thing. We had a student of one of the letters who had written about an uncle, who had, when he died, she wanted to read that letter, the letter to the author that cited him at his funeral and couldn't find a copy. And they remembered that we had said, and they pulled it out, made a copy for it, and that got read at her uncle's funeral. So I don't know how you see what's going on for 20 years. Well, it's so cool because these kids really are perhaps the writers of the future that will be honored, and the Jane Hope guests will be in a group of Nebraska authors. So it's fitting that their letters be kept there and archived for the future. Pretty cool stuff. And we do have a good time. I put fun up there because I just really wanted to point out that this is kind of a fun day for these kids. We invite, they can have two personal guests, because again, in this world, we never know who it's going to be. And then we have our percentage of the school when a school is involved. But sometimes it's not so, in fact, I think last time we had some winners in the school that we know they competed, because they just sent it on their own. Well, actually, they sent it on their own because their teacher had said, hey, if you want to do this, do it. So I kept saying to them, did you let her, and they did show up. But some years, we had to start that because also some years, we had, I was trying to work this school because I want them to say, I want this to be a big deal. And I want to be up there with the sports people saying, we're winners. And yay. And announcing it in the inter over the cabinet. Putting it out there, you know, on the newsletters and all of that kind of stuff. But what's really kind of funny is some years, the principal wants to come and rather than the teachers sometimes make this work. Because of course, we want them to be proud and we want them to be a part of this. So it is kind of interesting who shows up and who doesn't when you get ready to do the honors. But anyway, they're not there to talk about themselves. We have a group of police supporters with them. So I asked Lorraine and Christine thinking about this from a librarian's point of view, both school librarians and public librarians. I think librarians can really have a role in encouraging young people to write these letters and to submit them to the competition, but also to encouraging adults in their lives to encourage them. So encouraging those intermediaries. So obviously we can partner with classroom teachers. And a lot of times it is the classroom teacher. Again, a lot of times it's not Lorraine mentioned homeschoolers. One of the things that public libraries increasingly do, I know that you have a lot of homeschoolers that work in your library. I think I'm going to call public libraries because we are there from their school library. So again, you know who the homeschoolers are, you can encourage that to be part of their curriculum. Also, I think it's really important that we promote the library as a place to find a book that makes a difference. One of our Nebraska Center for the Book Board members teaches teachers. And she finds increasingly that the curriculum the teachers face when they leave college and go out to work in the schools is not really that encouraging of getting a book and reading a book and thinking about how that book affects you. That may be what they're encouraging students to do is read a segment from a book and react to the segment from a book and then move on to the next thing. So I think that's something that we as people who love libraries and love reading have to circle back to is that how do we promote the actual going to the library and getting a whole book and reading it and asking ourselves what do to that make. So that's our one way. But I think in a few books you can actually read a segment because of the true sense of the whole book. Well, I think about, for example, if you read the courtroom scene from to to kill an hockey player. Okay, there's a lot to be learned on that, but that's like just a portion of what's in that book. So I don't know. I don't know whatever. But anyway, that's what what we hope happens as a result of this is that there's more going to the library, more getting books, more reading the whole book and then thinking about it. I want to encourage you all to think about sharing these teacher materials here. Okay, that's the magic word with the computer. Okay, what I'm going to show you now is a teacher's manual, which obviously it's full of teaching activities to encourage people to write a letter. And I love this one. You want me to write one? Oh yeah, what's a letter? But you know, this is a this is something that teachers can use some of the parents can use. This is something obviously librarians can use. Home schoolers, you name it. I think there's a lot that can be can be done by just taking a look at this teaching activities manual. Challenging adults to write their own letters. That's kind of what I was talking about when I said what would you say doing that with the book club, etc. Christine had a good idea here that maybe what would help students is to really have a one-on-one mentoring relationship. Maybe those could be recruited from local writing groups or college classes. They might have a lot of enthusiasm for working one-on-one with a student on their writing skills. And then there is a webinar for educators and and obviously teachers have got like way, way too much to do. So if in the school library or in the public library, we hosted a viewing party, it's archived here at this website. And vitamin, feed them coffee and cookies. I mean, I don't know. I know everybody's really busy, but it just thoughts ideas like this. And Christa will include these URLs and the information from the webinar. So you go find these URLs after the webinars that put into our archive. You don't have to describe that. We're not going to do that because I didn't know. Christa will be over. Yeah, it'll be there. It'll be there. And then the other thing I wanted to mention is that we really have been experimenting with this idea of teachers and librarians hosting letter writing clinics for students in these target age ranges. And we've got some funding from Humanities to ask them to experiment with this. The idea being that well, obviously, teachers are very interested in having young people read and write. And they're very busy with what is already in the curriculum, but maybe a special like events could be held where they were kids could have fun reading and writing and writing and writing letters that maybe they've never even gotten a letter in their life and they could send letters to each other before they write one to the author, you know, things like that. So they get a feel for what is up with this letter writing business. Because I think that it's confused now in our society with writing texts and emails. And we really see letter writing differently than something like writing a text or an email. So we encourage that. The letter writing clinics, as I said, are funded by the humanities Nebraska. We haven't gotten the information up on the website yet, but it soon will be for the next year. What we're encouraging you to do now this year is get students to write letters for the December 9th deadline. Right. But the letter writing clinics next year will let you know when the grants are available. And we'll have hopefully another group of grantees testing this out and seeing what it's like to have a special event for students to learn about letter writing. And there are a lot of resources for this. There's the guidelines and three forms, the teaching guide I just showed you. This is kind of fun. I don't think we have time to do this, but if you go to All About Books on any Teen Nebraska radio, you can click on two different students who were winners in our competition. And they're reading their letters. These were students who wanted to read their letters, obviously. We didn't make them. No, we didn't do it. But these two wanted to and they read them on the radio and talked chat with Kat Leach about what it's like to write a letter. So it's pretty cool. And then there's just a variety of other resources here that we've received to help with the letter writing clinics. These are some kids that are in the letter writing clinics. This is at Norfolk School. And they are doing a variety of activities, obviously. They're reflecting with a teacher and with each other on what they've read. They're doing some writing. They wrote some letters to each other. And it was fun because I noticed that we're getting some publicity from newspapers about the clinics and getting people thinking about why on earth these kids would be writing to an author. These authors might not even be alive from it. They might be a dead author, you know. But still, the idea being that this person created something that had a real effect on you. And now you get a chance to share why and how. And then this I love. This is from one of our letter writing clinics. All 23 of the students signed a letter thanking us for funding the clinic. So I thought that was pretty cool. It's great. Yeah. I'm writing a letter. What a great idea. I know. I'm finding it. For those of you who know when you talk to teachers, they're going to wonder where this kind of fits in the curriculum. Christine talked to Sherry Crow at UNK. And she suggested that we share this with teachers that these are the English language and we're asking which language arts standards. And obviously this fits with the reading comprehension section identifying the author's purpose. It also fits with the writing section. Obviously writing in multiple modes for variety of purposes and audiences. And then there's a section in the writing, which is just perfect. Provide evidence from literary or informational text to support your ideas. So this is like the English language standards. It fits with the curriculum standards. And again, the reminder that December 9th is the deadline for all of our categories, all our age categories. And you can go to the center for the book dot Nebraska dot gov slash program slash la dot htm to get more details about the forms that you need. I might just show those to you. And Christine, do you have anything else you would like to share? Not that I can think of, just dive in and get started. And I know I'm going to, I will try to work on my end to get this out to a broader audience than I have in the past as I continue to learn more and more about the program. So I would encourage other librarians out there to do that as well. You will be sending this stuff into not to any place in Nebraska. People have commented about that when they've seen that and said, oh my goodness, if this is going off to Washington D.C. or someplace else, how is it kind of, goes there, they get sorted out so that all of the Nebraska ones will be able to come back to Nebraska. And they also sort out the things that are obvious book reports, the things that are not truly a letter. So what we get back then are the things that actually set the criteria. However, one of the reasons we have that earlier date because there is a later one for some states is we opted to get things at that point so that the Nebraska judges are judging all the letters. There is a round that you could opt into where the people at the national level make the first cut and then we would get back just what they thought was the best. But we wanted to evaluate that ourselves. So at one point we've gotten over 90 letters back one year in the grade 7th and 8th category. Yeah, those judges, that was the only time I actually had them each read 30, pick their two best, then we sent those six out and they picked again. But we haven't ever had to do that before. Normally our judges are dealing with 25 to 30 letters or so that actually are appropriate and I know they get many, many more judging from the numbers. So that tells us that we do have people who even teachers that are not recognizing this is not a fan letter, this is not a book report, and this is not some kind of summary of the book. This is a reflective letter. So it's important that we cannot give prizes and awards to people when they're not following the basic core idea. But that's that's normally what the judges get, and they each get their set of letters to read and get together on their own in some way. And the next thing I know I'm getting emails saying, here's the winner and ordinarily telling something about why they chose it. And that does remind me, they also, when the judges are available, the winners do have a chance to meet them at that luncheon as well. And that's that's cool. They enjoyed that. And the judges are going to just can't wait to meet these students, the fantastic things they have written. Do you have your judges chosen for this year already? Yes, I always have to. So you can volunteer for this year. But you can volunteer. You're interested, just volunteer because the two senior high judges are both people who volunteered at the time. I didn't have an opening, but both of them are busy now. And so, you know, things, things do change. And from time to time, they change very suddenly. So I've had these people chosen. But, you know, by the time it's February and they're judging something else, I don't mean to predict disasters, but sometimes people just retire and aren't interested in doing any more, or they get a chance to go on a big trip. So don't think it's just terrible things. But all of a sudden, somebody says, I'm sorry, I can't do this. So if you're interested in any part of this, please don't hesitate to get in touch with me or Mary, Joe or Christie, that'll get the message. We'll get it tellerines and kick you volunteer to judge, believe me. So here on the Nebraska Center for the Book website, centerforthebook.nebraska.gov, and if you are watching, I click to it from the front page, but you can also get there from this program stamp. We have a lot of information about letters about written literature. Again, the categories, again, are linked to that teacher's guide, which I think is really useful for the frequently asked questions. Loreen mentioned the letters are sent to the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C. directly, not to Nebraska. So here's the address right here. And as you noticed from the little video I showed, you can do that in an envelope all together, or you can send them individually. Either way, they'll be accepted. And how to enter, this is kind of important. December 9th is the deadline. Guidelines and entry forms, this is real important because you have to use this entry form. And so make sure that if you're talking to a student or a teacher that this needs to be used for the REACH student. And so it's pretty useful. Yes. That form, that needs to be, that form you're seeing right there, that entry to go, it needs to be attached to each letter. I count on that when I get those. Yeah. You can see there's class entry section and then there's individual entry section. Pass winners. I actually think this is kind of a fun section. Those that want to, students that want to, we put their letter up here so you can read it. Some, of course, you will see won't have their letter up there. But those that want to, leave we post it. Guidelines and entry forms we just looked at. Official website, that's the one we went to earlier, which you can see at the bottom of the page. It's read.gov slash letters. And again, if you wanted to hear that all about books, podcasts of the student winners who read their letters, you can click through that there. This is a picture you can hardly see, but the students are having a good time at the Capitol building. Actually, they're all delighted they're standing up there at the right time. Well, they've never seen before and they're near you. The governor, a lieutenant governor, depending on what happens that year, but usually the governor. And there's a proclamation involved, which the governor has signed. It's all good. It's really fun. So, Kristi, do you have anything you'd like to share about that since I know you've been to that event sometimes? Oh, I can't. Other than the kids are just thrilled and I, everyone at the Capitol is so appreciative of these young people stepping up using their creative talents and having the opportunity to honor those kids who've taken the time to enter and put this into action, I guess. So, everybody wins. And I just hope it continues to be a strong program. Yeah. And I think sometimes there's even time for the families to tour the Capitol a little bit. And that's always fun, too. We had some people, our winner from the farthest away point was Shadry. And the winner and her mother and aunt came, and they have never been to the Capitol before. They've been to Lincoln, but they just never realized the Capitol was such a big deal. And they toured a little bit and they came back and toured again. So, and usually their representatives want to be there as well and will help show them around and give them kind of the VIP treatment. So, people will stop and visit. They're not letting me mention that, Kristy. They're representative, first of all, because somebody's there from their whole district and their winner. So, perfect. Yes. So, is there any questions from anybody that you would like to, like, if you want to have your microphone unmuted, just click on the raise your hand button in the right side of your screen. Or if you'd like to just type in the chat box, feel free to do that too. Sally can pick up your questions that way. Or Doreen, is there anything else you'd like to share? Well, I was thinking about, when you're talking about judges, you know, we do have two judges per category. And we've had authors. We've had retired teachers. We've had currently active teachers. We've had college professors. We've had, of course, librarians. So we've had, we've had bookstores, people related associated with bookstores. In fact, when I started, the volunteers came from the center for the book board. Kristy, I don't know if you know that, but of course, when I was pitching this thing to them and saying, I think we ought to just jump right in and do this, not only did they end up voting that, yes, Nebraska should participate, but a number of them right then volunteered to be judges for me. So that was really good news. And in fact, one of those volunteers that I mentioned from the senior high level, that when he first got on the center for the board, heard about it, got in touch with me and wanted to just be involved in this in any way he could. And again, he's a college professor in Omaha, and he's one of the people who's judging that senior high level. So I guess hearing no questions, we just want to encourage everybody out there to talk to some young people about submitting their letters to their authors and also talk to those folks we call intermediaries, those teachers and school media specialists and people that have a chance to encourage young people to read and write about what they read. If it isn't a class assignment, sometimes it really takes that extra step of saying to someone, I think you're a good writer, or I think you've got a good perceptive idea about what's in this book, or I think you should do this. Because again, we're in Nebraska, we don't remember bragging about ourselves shamelessly. We think, well, if we're doing right, somebody will see it and they will work out. And so we need to be sometimes those people who are seeing it and do encourage someone to take that next step. I think that's a good point for us to close on is encourage someone to take that next step. That's a very good thing to do. Christine, anything else for the good of the group? No, I think you guys have covered it all. So thank you. Thank you. Thank you very much. Well, thank you to all Christine and Marine and Mary-Jo. And thank you, Sally, for engineering us with this. Oh, absolutely. I know we've got all these computers lined up here. Who knows which one will make it work. So I'm just going to see about showing because I just want to talk about next week. So if I go to calendar on our webpage, we have the calendar is a button right there. And next week, we have Encompass Live will be, oh, this is so cool. This is this. That's right. Yes. Yes. This is a presentation that she gave at conference that not everybody got to go to and she's very willing to revisit it and share it with all of us via Encompass Live. This is about, it will discuss the role of YA fiction and team development and specific YA title to encourage STEM interests with team girls. Because, of course, we probably know, we found that girls have been not as eager to jump into this different STEM or STEAM, whatever stream. There's lots of different acronyms. And we want to give them that opportunity. So, you know, Christy was talking about Madeline Langel and Eureka Littai. And it wasn't until I was in college that I realized that was based on real science. I didn't sleep through physics in high school. I didn't take it. So, I figured out a way to take all the literature instead. Yeah. So, in case you want to go to college, that was my secret. So, would you take Encompass Live? I would love to. Okay. Encompass Live. And if you do a search, it will come up the first thing. First thing. And there we go. Here's the archive section. I want to show you that the list here is what's coming up. And then the archive live sessions are right there. And right now they're in order of presentation. So, we have, what is it, nine years of them? Oh my goodness. And we're doing this every Wednesday for nine years. So, we're working on, it's not ready yet, but we're working on a search thing then. So, you can go and say letters about literature and find this one instead of scrolling down. That sounds like something long brain, I think, that we used to. So, you can find that and you can find our list of what's coming up next to find out what you might be interested in. And we invite you to join us again next week. And thank you again, presenters, for your information. And I'm going to now call this done. Here's hoping I can turn it off. Thank you all. Bye everybody. Bye. Have a great day. Until you too. And what we know for all. That sounds like a good way of talking. Yeah.