Release party for Out of My Mind March 27, 2010

Hello all,

The book launch party was a delightful success. Let's see--where do I start?
The day dawned sunny and warm after weeks of rainy, dreary weather. Our color scheme was pale blue and orange, of course, and so loads of helium balloons decorated the outside of the building and along the halls of the school as well. We had it at Walnut Hills High School where I taught for 20 years, and LOTS of my former students came. One drove all the way from Chicago. I guess we had about 250 in attendance.

When people arrived, they were given name tags (because I can't remember anybody's name!) and they signed the guest book. Then they registered for door prizes.

The program began with a children's choir, carrying lighted candles, (battery) walking into the darkened auditorium. They sand "This Little Light of Mine." Then we had an invocation and I came out, dressed in a white suit--of course--with an orange scarf to keep with our color scheme. I gave a welcome and introduced the book, read a couple of selected passages, then I showed the first video, which focuses on words and the power of language. It's only 2 minutes long, so it is powerful and pointed.

Then I read some more, (the part about Ollie) and a couple of passages about the people who helped Melody, like Mrs. V and Mrs. Lovelace. That was followed by a group of disabled young people who do sign language to songs. The music was Josh Groban's "You Lift Me Up," and they were phenomenal. People wept.

I read then the passage about how Melody wished she could fly. A former student sang, in a deep contralto, "I Believe I can Fly." It was a wonderful solo. The next passage I read was how Melody dreams, and what she dreams of. That was followed by my daughter Crystal who did a beautifully moving dance to the song "I Dream in Color." She did half the dance in/ with a wheelchair, and half out of the chair in an expressive, powerful piece. She got a standing ovation.

After that, I read one more passage, about Melody's hopes for her life, then showed the last two-minute video, which is set to the music of Louis Armstrong's "What Wonderful World." We ended with a poem I wrote in which the whole audience stands and joins hands and celebrates life. It was just plain awesome. It went off without a hitch.

After that, everyone filed out to the atrium of the building, a new section that is glass-enclosed and really lovely, where we had the reception. We had a guy playing piano. We served blue punch, orange punch, a cake decorated with the cover of the book. Blue candy, orange candy, fresh fruit, and of course, goldfish crackers.

The door prizes? Live goldfish in bowls. I had 2 dozen of them. The children LOVED that.

I signed books for a couple of hours, greeted old friends and new, and left there exhausted. It is a glorious day.

Here are a few pix.

Thanks,
Sharon Draper

Well, I’m back home, a bit jet-lagged, but glad to be in the USA once more. The trip to Africa was amazing. The purpose, if you remember, was to take Copper Sun back to the continent. The program Reading Across Continents paired American students with students from Ghana and Nigeria. It was a true inter-continental, global, cross-cultural, shared social and educational experience. It focused on friendship and shared, common interests. As Americans, we sometimes see only the negative aspects of African society. We often fail to recognize the positive—their focus on education and their academic successes. The young people who were part of this program are the future leaders of their countries. And perhaps because of this program, they have formed friendships that will ease some of the world’s social tensions.
Ten students from Ghana and ten from Nigeria visited the United States for three weeks in September. On this trip, twenty American students, all high school seniors from School Without Walls in Washington, DC, made the journey to Africa to meet up with their friends. Ten went to Ghana. Ten went to Nigeria. Their reunions were joyous and heartwarming.
I went to Nigeria first, where I got to know the students there. We visited the American Embassy in Abuja, as well as other sites, and the students began taking classes—in the uniforms of the Nigerian students. I did a book talk about Copper Sun to the teens from both Nigeria and America. It was an amazing discussion.
All too soon I had to leave Nigeria for Ghana, where I met the ten American students as they arrived from the US. Another joyous reunion of friends from two continents.
In Ghana, the American students again embraced the uniforms of their Ghanaian friends. I did another book talk with the teens in Ghana about Copper Sun, and somehow it was an even more effective and powerful discussion. I think it’s because Ghana is where it all started.
The next day we got to travel to Cape Coast Castle, the place where the seeds of Copper Sun was born. I got to retrace my steps, to touch the stones of that building once more, and to tell Amari that I had done what she asked me to—tell her story to the world. I stood at the Door of No Return, in front of those twenty students, their teachers, and assorted guides and other visitors, and told the story of how the story started, of how I felt that I was asked to tell the tale. Then I gave thanks that not only was I able to write the book, and bring it back to that place, but that the book had been instrumental in joining the hearts and minds of forty young people and their teachers and schools. Not only had the story been told—it had been shared with the world. Standing in front of that door at that moment was one of the most powerful, emotional moments in my life. I wept. So did many of the students.
I took Amari back home.
Thank you.

To see all the pictures go to: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=39769&id=1473964793&l=12154a2803

My Trip To Africa--Day One

Today I am writing this from Abuja, Nigeria. I just arrived, and of course the first thing I did was to find the computer in the lobby! It's warm and welcoming here. The World Cup Soccer games are in town, so there is a great air of excitement all around. I have no pictures to post yet, but I'm going to take lots!
The reason I'm here is because my book Copper Sun was chosen by the State Department and the International Reading Association to be read by students in the US, and students in Nigeria and Ghana. How cool! Now that is a truly international, inter-continental, multicultural literacy event. Twenty America students were chosen to come with us. Tomorrow we begin our adventures with the Nigerian students. I'll post whenever I find a computer. I don't think I'll have access after today. But when I get home I'll post pictures and lots of good stories. Pray for us!

Back to School! Read, Read, Read! And Enjoy the Process!

Salute to Librarians and Teachers--The Reader's Rap! It's back to school and back to reading.
Thanks for all you do to celebrate books, and to spread the magic and beauty of language.
The name of the poem is Reader's Rap, and you can find it in Book 6 of the Ziggy series. It's called Stars and Sparks On Stage.
The music is done by my friend Annie Ruth--visual artist, poet, musician, and creator of a magic all her own.

Have a wonderful school year!

"The Apostle of Planet Tween" -- Article in May Ed. of Cincinnati Magazine.

http://www.cincinnatimagazine.com/article.aspx?id=76843

When young adult and children’s author Sharon M. Draper visits schools nationwide—sometimes greeted by marching bands, cheerleaders, and deeply grateful parents and teachers—she’s not only there to read her books to the throngs of tween fans that hang on every word. She’s also listening intently.

“When you’re there on a daily basis you know the words [students] use,” says Draper in a quiet third-floor corner of the Main Library downtown. She’s taking a brief pause at the end of a day packed with talking about her path from award-winning teacher to award-winning author, and why it pays to watch young people. “You observe things like [how they] wear one pants leg up and one pants leg down, you know they use different color shoelaces in their shoes and that means something,” she says. “When I go to schools I’m teaching as well as learning. Sometimes I take notes. I keep a little notebook.”

In a mad rush before summer break, Draper is touring schools in Chicago; Atlanta; Washington, D.C.; South Carolina; Orlando; Daytona Beach; and Minneapolis to promote her latest young adult novel, Just Another Hero (Simon & Schuster), a story that examines the concept of heroism through a group of friends confronted by school violence. “I wanted to deal with violence without killing anybody,” she says bluntly. “It’s a lot of noise, a lot of screaming, a lot of broken glass. I wanted kids to discuss violence without experiencing it.”

Listening to how her readers talk—and sometimes asking those same students for clarity and validity—is how Draper stays plugged into issues plaguing their young lives. In fact, dealing with the issues that baffle parents has turned Draper into a one-woman CNN. As a veteran teacher who began her career in the Princeton school district in 1970 and retired 30 years later from Walnut Hills High School (where she won a National Teacher of the Year award in 1997), Draper has reported from the frontlines of tween angst throughout 28 books in 15 years, eloquently exposing suicide, date rape, gang violence, sex, drugs, and the slave trade on a level teenagers can handle. Her characters triumph amid a flurry of teachable moments.

It’s been this way since Draper’s 1994 debut—Tears of a Tiger, which chronicles the aftermath of a drunk driving incident—nabbed the American Library Association’s Coretta Scott King Genesis Award honoring new work by an African-American author. Her 2006 book Fire From the Rock, which follows a black high school freshman named Sylvia as she’s thrust into the segregated world of Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas, in 1957, is the Public Library of Cincinnati and Hamilton County’s current young adult title for its annual On the Same Page community reading project. Call it street cred; her readers do.

She describes her ever-expanding recognition and sales as a “groundswell of appreciation. Students appreciate me. Kids take the time to find and thank me,” she says, leaning in to display e-mails on her iPhone, paging through with her fingertip. “They write in text language. I get them every day. I get teachers, too. ‘I was a young teacher and didn’t know what to do and somebody said try Tears of a Tiger and boom!’” Draper can also attest to the broad racial appeal of her books. Especially her first historical novel, Copper Sun, which traces the life of Amari, a 15-year-old Ghanaian girl stolen from her village and sold into slavery in 1738 North Carolina.

Draper shows me a laudatory e-mail from a teacher who taught Copper Sun, which came out three years ago. “Now this is from Waynesville, Ohio. These are white children. That is rewarding,” she says. The blur of hotels, book signings, and fans wears on Draper, but her seemingly bottomless well of material leaves little choice.

“I sit down and the words come faster than I can type them,” she says. “It’s a gift. It’s like I am the vessel through which this is being poured.” And it appears her readers drink up every word.

Sharon Draper, The Collected Works

Draper on Paper
“I thought my calling was to go to Washington and work with Obama. I just want to sit in his living room and chat about education.” Draper even filled out a 12-page online application for a job with the Department of Education. “I haven’t heard. I may never hear.”

Treading Water
“I can’t swim. I tell kids, ‘If you hear of Sharon Draper going on a cruise, I’ve been abducted. Call 911.’ I don’t do large mounts of water.”

Dreaming of O
“I think every author dreams of being on Oprah. Oprah’s people have people. I don’t have any connections to Oprah. Oprah has to find you.”

King Me
Tears of A Tiger (1994), Forged By Fire (1997), The Battle of Jericho (2003), Copper Sun (2006) and November Blues (2007) all received the Coretta Scott King Award. Presented by the American Library Association, it recognizes excellent African-American authors and illustrators of children’s and young adult books.

Originally published in the May 2009 issue.

I'm a READ poster!

The Media Specialist at Lafayette High School in Williamsburg, Virginia, put me on a poster! Media Specialists are the folks that used to be called Librarians, but because they do SOOO much more these days, they've been upgraded. They're are always cool, innovative people, and I appreciate what they do. I've always admired those READ posters that I've seen hanging in libraries because I think they are a great way to encourage young people to read. I never thought I'd be on one. And now I am. Way cool. Thanks, Mrs. Schauffler!