Adventures at Wilder Farm

NCTE Notable Children’s Books in the Language Arts — One Thousand Tracings

March 31st, 2008
by Dave Judge
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One Thousand Tracings was selected as a 2008 Notable Children’s book in the Language Arts! This list of thirty books was selected by a committee of the Children’s Literature Assembly of NCTE. We saw the announcement and the full list of titles at Educating Alice.

CLA

Don’t you think the Children’s Literature Assembly has a great logo (Chrysanthemum by Kevin Henkes)?

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Hogwood Steps Out

March 28th, 2008
by Dave Judge
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Lita is in snowy New Hampshire but I’m back in California where the poppies are in full bloom. And with the coming of spring, our good friend, Howard Mansfield, has a new book out next month—Hogwood Steps Out: A Good, Good Pig Story. Check out the good, good review today at Just One More Book.

Hogwood Steps Out

Lita and I love pigs. Last year at the IRA conference in Toronto, we made a special trip to visit a pig farm just north of the city. This wasn’t just a pig farm—these pigs had been rescued from precarious situations (I’m sure you can imagine what I mean) and are now living in luxury accommodations on the side of a large pond with nice clean mud and shade trees. Look how happy they are…

Pig Farm

Pig Farm 2

Good luck to Hogwood!

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New Palestine, Indiana

March 26th, 2008
by Lita Judge
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A teacher at New Palestine Elementary sent these pictures and story to Becky Gaines, the publisher of the New Palestine Press. Thanks to Becky for sending this to me. And congratulations to the students at New Palestine Elementary for working on a great service project!

One Thousand Tracings,” by Lita Judge, gave a glimpse of time in the 1940’s and of the need for people in the war stricken countries for shoes.

New Palestine Elementary School 1

(…) This year’’s event included a special service project. New Palestine Elementary students donated good used shoes to aid Indianapolis children in need. Two books the children read helped give an understanding of other’s’ needs. “Those Shoes”, written by Maribeth Boelts, gave a warm understanding of how important a good pair of shoes can be. It can bring pride and dignity to many children. The second book, “One Thousand Tracings”, by Lita Judge, gave a glimpse of time in the 1940’s and of a need for people in the war stricken countries for shoes. They would trace their feet and send them to a family that would search to find their size and send them back to them. The students each traced both of their feet, making over 1,000 Tracings.

New Palestine Elementary School 2

The feet tracings are hanging up at New Palestine Elementary to represent their wonderful service project. They had a special opportunity for school spirit, good exercise and, most of all learned how to give to others with their community service.”

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Dinosaur Coloring Pages

March 25th, 2008
by Dave Judge
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Lita visited the 1st and 2nd graders at Pompositticut School in Stow, MA yesterday. A lot of the presentation was about dinosaurs so we wanted to post a link to Lita’s dinosaur coloring pages.

Dinosaur Coloring Book

They’re also available here.

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Just One More Book

March 17th, 2008
by Dave Judge
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Andrea and Mark at Just One More Book (JOMB) did a wonderful podcast review of One Thousand Tracings in January at the JOMB coffee shop. I also read this Q&A interview about JOMB and I find their story and partnership quite interesting.

Lita did an interview with Mark in early February—they discussed books and blogs and the topic of partnership. The interview was just posted on JOMB yesterday—you can listen to it here.

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Born in Alaska

March 14th, 2008
by Dave Judge
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Lita has several presentations in Michigan next week so she’s been preparing some slide images to go along with her talks. I thought these pictures of Lita in Alaska were great.

Lita is a twin, and was born in Ketchikan, Alaska on Revillagigedo Island. Her dad worked as a soil scientist for the US Forest Service on the Tongass National Forest.
Smokey Bear - Lita Judge

Totem Poles

This spot is Totem Bight State Park. Here’s a recent picture.

Totem Bight

Ketchikan is in the southeast part of Alaska. It gets a yearly average rainfall of 152 inches, and also 40 inches of snow. Ketchikan is one of those places where they have rain storms with 100 mph winds, but they don’t call them hurricanes. And they have thousand foot tall hills, but they don’t call them mountains.

Lita’s family lived in Alaska for 2-3 years and then her dad got transferred (to Utah, then Nevada, Oregon, Wisconsin, and back to Oregon).

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NH Chronicle, Part 1 and 2

March 7th, 2008
by Dave Judge
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Lita and One Thousand Tracings were featured on New Hampshire Chronicle in September, 2007. They filmed this last August, right after Tracings was released. Part 1 is about 8 minutes and part 2 is about 5 minutes. Here’s part 1:

And here’s part 2:

Thanks to Jennifer Crompton of NH Chronicle for sending us the video (with permission to post it), and for doing such a good job on this program!

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The Eagle’s Nest - Northwest Elementary School

March 4th, 2008
by Dave Judge
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Lita visited Northwest Elementary School (NES) in Manchester, NH last November. I remember she was so impressed with the school and the teachers and the kids after that visit. NES created a Lita Judge page on their school website with some notes from the visit. And the NES kids have been working on their own writing and illustrating - they just sent us their first issue of The Eagle’s Nest.

The Eagle’s Nest

The cover artwork is by Monique Staples.

We were so impressed with the writing and illustrating in The Eagle’s Nest. Everyone at NES has done a great job!

NES added a dedication to Lita:

Dedication

The inspiration goes both ways. Thanks NES, and keep up the good work!

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