Read Across America and 7th Grade Revolution

Liana Gardner — Fri, 07 Mar 2025 02:57:23 +0000

Yesterday, I had the privilege and the honor of celebrating Read Across America week with the 6th Graders of my alma mater, Wagner Elementary School. Read Across America is a week-long celebration of reading, beginning on Dr. Suess's birthday. Its purpose is motivating children to read more, celebrating reading and literacy, building community, and educating people about the benefits of reading. With me in Eastern Tennessee and Wagner Elementary in Southern California, we truly embraced the concept of Read Across America.

I read a chapter from 7th Grade Revolution, then we had a Q&A session, and I also had the chance to share an excerpt from my current work in progress. I love answering questions and talking about the writing process, so the Q&A portion was so much fun. The kids asked insightful questions, and it turned into several joint teachable moments between the teacher and me.

An example was the simple question: "Which of your characters is your favorite?" Spoiler Alert: All of them. While explaining that I couldn't choose one favorite, I mentioned Katie McCabe. Katie is the character who has been living in my head the longest, so in any given scenario I know exactly how she'll react, what she'll say, and how she'll deal with the situation. The teacher jumped in and emphasized that I had mentioned how the character reacts as it is something she had pointed out to the class in previous lessons. They don't just talk and take action, they have reactions to the situation.

Leaders of the 7th Grade Revolution

I could go on and on about the questions and answers, but suffice it to say that my answers supported and validated what the teacher had been presenting to the students throughout the school year. Prior to the event, I had provided some background information on 7th Grade Revolution and made sure to point out the character pictures with brief bio I have on my website and the teacher projected them on a board.

While I read, the kids, on hearing a name would check the board so they had an image to help them better imagine the story as it continued. The images had an even greater impact during the Q&A portion. We discussed the tools used to create them, and as they had used the same tools they saw different ways to apply the tools.

A huge thank you to the 6th Graders of Wagner Elementary for such a great experience. I believe we can say "Mission Accomplished" for Read Across America week for 2025.

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Let’s Read

Liana Gardner — Tue, 03 Mar 2009 06:19:08 +0000

I can’t believe that it’s almost over and I almost missed it! March 2nd is NEA (National Education Association) Read Across America day, which focuses on motivating children to read. The date for the celebration was chosen to coincide with the birthday of that childhood favorite Dr. Suess. (It’s ok, you can still like Dr. Suess as an adult. . .we won’t tell). I still can recall while in elementary school we had to write an essay on our favorite author or a poet or something like that. I really don’t remember the exact nature of the assignment, what I do remember was that my essay was on Theodore Geisel, better known as Dr. Suess, and I came to admire him not only as a children’s writer, but for all of his writing. It surprised and fascinated me that he also penned political cartoons during the war effort, in addition to writing illustrated books for adults. Just a few years ago, I was excited to be able to obtain a copy of The Seven Ladies Godiva. It was after the failure of this book to sell that Geisel is noted as stating that he’d rather write for kids because, “Adults are obsolete children, and the hell with them.”

Before this turns into a rewrite of my elementary school essay, let me get back to the actual topic of Read Across America. On the NEA website, they give a brief history of the event.

In May 1997, a small reading task force at NEA came up with a big idea. “Let’s create a day to celebrate reading,” the group decided. “We hold pep rallies to get kids excited about football. We assemble to remember that Character Counts. Why don’t we do something to get kids excited about reading? We’ll call it ‘NEA’s Read Across America’ and we’ll celebrate it on Dr. Seuss’s birthday.” And so was born on March 2, 1998, the largest celebration of reading this country has ever seen.

While not being an official participant this year, as I just found out about it, I feel like I am hosting my own Read Across America event with my traveling book project, Where in the World is Misfit McCabe? I have sent eight special edition copies of my young adult novel, Misfit McCabe out into the world where the purpose is for them to be read and passed to the next person. It will be very interesting to see how far they go. My whole reason for starting this project was to promote reading. I loved to read as a child and still do to this day. I firmly believe that children who are motivated to read, not only do better in school, but in their adult life as well.
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LK Griffie
Visit me at Griffie World
To buy Misfit McCabe, visit my store at Lulu.com or purchase at Amazon.com
To track Misfit McCabe across the country, visit:
Where in the World is Misfit McCabe?
Own a Kindle? Download Misfit McCabe
in an instant.
To read book reviews by LK Griffie, visit: The Lulu Book Review

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Read Across America and 7th Grade Revolution

Let’s Read