Socially Conscious Kids Raise Money for Haiti

I don’t know how many of our readers are in or near Baltimore, but I thought this was such a touching news story that I would share it with everyone. As part of a private Catholic school, the students at St. Agnes School in Catonsville, MD have to wear a uniform to school every day. Every so often, they have a special “dress down” fundraiser where the students can pay $1 to wear regular clothes. However, for this January 15th’s dress down day, the students were told the monies would be going to Haiti relief and they didn’t have a … Continue reading

Greenbuild International Conference and Expo

If you are in Phoenix, Arizona between November 11 and 13, consider yourself lucky! The annual Greenbuild International Conference and Expo is going to be there too! What is Greenbuild? It is the largest conference devoted to green building. It will feature prominent speakers such as Daniel Wildcat. Daniel, a Native American is the director of the Haskell Environmental Research Studies Center at Haskell Indian Nations University in Lawrence, Kansas. Wildcat hosted an event at the 25th annual Earth Day in which Native American scientists, engineers, and elders talked about the change needed for a healthy planet. He also helped … Continue reading

Animals in Historical Mysteries: An Interview with Mary Reed (and Eric Mayer)

Another author who recently humored my request for an interview is Mary Reed, who co-authors the John the Eunuch series with Eric Mayer. And actually I got double my money this go around because this dynamic duo is also a married one as well. I’m going to keep my intro short because in reading their answers you’ll come to see how much they not only love animals (especially cats), but also use animals in their work and have a lot of fun with it. Courtney Mroch: What kind of things do you write about? Mary Reed/Eric Mayer: We write historical … Continue reading

The Wednesday Wars – Gary D. Schmidt

The unfortunately named boy Holling Hoodhood is starting seventh grade with a strike already against him – he’s the only Presbyterian in a class full of Jews and Catholics. While the other children are excused early on Wednesday afternoons to attend temple and mass, Holling is stuck at school, and he’s sure his teacher hates him. No doubt she was looking forward to Wednesday afternoons completely free, but with this one lone Presbyterian to look after, she’s trapped, and she takes it out on him by making him read Shakespeare’s plays. He doesn’t realize until later that she’s actually doing … Continue reading