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2012 FRANKLIN COUNTY LITERATURE FESTIVAL

WELCOME

Children's eyes once again will light up as pages come to life.

More than 1,100 Franklin County third, fourth and fifth graders will load into buses bound for Ottawa University, where they will meet authors, illustrators and storytellers March 14 at the 11th annual Franklin County Literature Festival.

Not only can children have their books signed by the creator, but they can ask: "How did you come up with that?" "How long does it take to write a story?" and other questions they've thought of when they've found themselves lost in pages.

If you're looking for authors, illustrators and works that will be featured this year, just check below.

MEET THE AUTHORS - GET THE GOODS

ALAN CUNNINGHAM

Alan Cunningham is an Ottawa schools music teacher. He has released two CDs children’s songs called “Colors All Around.” “It’s just a collection of crazy songs,” Cunningham, who began teaching at Pomona and Appanoose schools in 1981, said. Cunningham finds inspiration for his music from school and at home. Each song has its own story, he said. The title track he wrote for a teacher at school to mark Dr. Suess’ birthday. He took the colors from a Dr. Suess book and wrote the song.

Get More Info:
Alan Cunningham: Check out his Web site

ROSIE CUTRER

Rosie Cutrer, a storyteller from Topeka, Kansas, has been telling stories professionally for the past fifteen years, presenting at festivals, schools, libraries and museums. In the past few years she has been invited to perform at: the Cape Girardeau Storytelling Festival, the Kansas Storytelling Festival,The Land Run Festival in Choctaw, Oklahoma, the Homestead National Monument in Beatrice, Nebraska, and was a featured teller at the Kearney Area Storytelling Festival in 2011. In October of 2010 she made a storytelling tour of Ireland telling in schools and libraries in County Wexford and in County Antrim, Northern Ireland.

Get more info:
Rosie Cutrer's website

BOB GOODIN

Dr. Bob has been a full-time professional presenter for more than 20 years. The fun programs are tailored to the specific age group/grade level. Kids love the presentations because they are fun, librarians love them because they promote self-directed education through the use of library resources, and teachers and principals love them because they make learning fun and stimulate children to read more and thus learn more.

Get more info:
Dr. Bob Goodin's website

DAVID GREENBERG

David Greenberg began volunteering at local schools, helping kids with their reading and writing. He started using poems he had written as teaching material for these kids, and found that they really seemed to enjoy his writing. He now has published numerous books, mostly civil rights fiction and poetry. He lives in Portland, Oregon, and enjoys reading, swimming, cooking, ping pong, and boogy boarding.

Get more info:
David Greenbergs' website

CHERYL HARNESS

Cheryl Harness is an artist with a degree in art education who has worked at Hallmark Cards and other companies, including designing music boxes and Kleenex boxes. She began her book career illustrating books for other writers, and then started writing books as well. Along the way she found a feel and a love for American history, about which she writes.

Get more info:
Cheryl Harness' website

STEPHEN T. JOHNSON

Stephen T. Johnson is a versatile American artist whose work spans painting, collage, drawing, sculpture and installations and can be seen in museum and gallery exhibitions, site-specific public art commissions, and through his original award-winning children’s books. Much of his work is characterized by an interest in the alphabet and language, which began with his book Alphabet City, a Caldecott Honor and New York Times Best Illustrated Book of the Year.

Get more info:
Stephen T. Johnson's website

STEVEN KRASNER

Steven Krasner wears three writing "hats" – and that doesn’t include the gorilla mask he dons when he wants to “monkey” around. Steve, as he prefers to be called in the classroom, is a national education consultant, the creator of "Nudging the Imagination," as well as an award-winning children’s book author and a retired award-winning sports writer who covered the Boston Red Sox on a daily basis for 22 years.

Get more info:
Steven Krasner's website

CLAUDIA MILLS

Claudia Mills has been writing since she was 6 when her mother gave her a notebook for poetry. She has been writing professionally since graduate school. In addition to being a writer, she is a philosophy professor at the University of Colorado. She also has been an editorial assistant and an editor.

Get more info:
Claudia Mills' website

LOIS RUBY

Lois Ruby has had a lot of jobs — a waitress in a truck stop restaurant, a statistical typist, the director of a summer day camp and a Hebrew school, an art and music librarian, full-time mother, community volunteer, and office manager for a psychologist. She says she doesn't relish any of those jobs as well as her real job, which is writing, visiting schools to talk about writing and teaching writing.

Get more info:
Lois Ruby's website

DAVE SARGENT

Dave Sargent is a published author of children's books. Dave and his wife Pat are from Prairie Grove, Arkansas, and have written more than 400 books. Some of their book series include: Saddle Up, stories about horses; Animal Pride, a series about a variety of animals; Feather Tales, stories about birds; and Learn To Read, books containing sight words.

Get more info:
Dave Sargent's website

CHRISTINE TAYLOR-BUTLER

Christine Taylor-Butler says when she was growing up she lived in the library, but didn't know writers were ordinary people with an extraordinary passion — people like her. Multi-cultural children, she says, often don't see themselves depicted as being relevant in today's society, as making a difference or getting to be the "heroes." She decided to lend her voice and help change the climate.

Get more info:
Christina Taylor-Butler's website

JENNY WHITEHEAD

Jenny Whitehead is an author/illustrator of children’s poetry books, including Lunch Box Mail and Holiday Stew. She also illustrated a poetry collection written by Elsa Knight Bruno called Punctuation Celebration. She majored in art at Miami University in Oxford, Ohio. She designed wallpaper before becoming an art director at Hallmark Cards. She lives in Kansas City, Mo.

Get more info:
Jenny Whitehead's website

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