The story of THE GOOD BRAIDER has been welcomed in Lowell, Massachusetts, a city that has many refugees and will soon bring 500 newcomers from Congo. Through a University of Massachusetts Lowell grant, the book has been made available to many who are preparing for the Congolese along with […]
Heather Flanders, ELL Specialist at Gorham High School in Maine sent me two stories. She wrote, “I hope you are as moved as I was,” and I was. The stories were written by her students Amna and Megan, their own visions of the next chapter in […]
I met students at Oxford Hills High School in Maine in a program sponsored by the Norway Memorial Library. This student came to talk to me after my presentation about the young girl from Sudan who is the hero of my novel. I had talked to the students […]
I was invited to Bangor High School to do my sound slide show and reading called “Children of War.” I found myself in a fascinating city way up north on the Penobscot River, the former “lumber capital of the world.” The three log-drivers in the statue called “The […]
LitWorld is celebrating Stand Up for Girls day on October 11. LitWorld invites you to celebrate too by contributing a story to the site about a girl or woman who inspires you.
Portland, Maine celebrates nine books set in Maine’s “new arrival” communities with a 2013 city-wide read. Writers include South Sudanese memoirist, Aruna Kenyi in The Telling’s Room’s anthology I REMEMBER WARM RAIN. High school students who are named by the NAACP as Martin Luther King Jr. Fellows introduced each […]
A teacher in my workshop at the Mass. Reading Association conference talked about the challenge of connecting her students to stories and people of other cultures. Why are you always making us read these books? they asked her, about people outside the U.S. There are a million ways […]
Here’s an NPR story, Back to School, Despite Sudanese Violence from Bentiu, Unity Province, South Sudan. 17-year old Dalal Stephen Kuong, a student at the school, is pictured in this photo taken by Ofeibea Quist-Arcton.
Bridging Cultures – Muslim Journeys is a new reading list created by the NEH in collaboration with the American Library Association. This is a reading list for general readers and is a good resource for high school and college students. It includes House of Stone by Anthony Shadid, […]
Okay, Tom and the teachers at Portland High, this is for you. I joined the teachers for their Book Club in which they’d read THE GOOD BRAIDER. We talked about many themes in the book. Then English teacher Tom Talarico had the idea that if he used the […]
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The Good Braider 