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About six weeks ago I attended my first IRA (International Reading Association) annual conference in Chicago.

I got to go as a Presenter, and not as an Attendee – a first for me at a major conference! Nine authors from around the country (moi included) were shocked to have our all day panel workshop accepted and after numerous phone calls and hundreds of emails to plan our eight-hour workshop, we were off!

We spoke to a room full of reading specialists, teachers and librarians, as well as teachers and librarians who aspire to be writers themselves and wanted all our inner *secrets* – which we gladly gave them. What was so great about it, is that everything we talked about and demonstrated can be used in the classroom or at home.

Our topic? Rekindling the Reading Fire – Using the Story Strategies of Professional Authors to Inspire a Love of Reading and Writing.

Please Raise Your Hand if you’ve ever attended IRA!! 25,000 people attend every year – at least – from all over the world. We had a women from Nigeria and England as well as all over the USA – and those are just the ones I personally got to chat with during breaks and lunch.

In the comments below, we’d love to hear your thoughts and impressions of any past IRA experiences and how it helped you as a teacher.

With eight hours to fill from 9 a.m. – 5 p.m., of course we had to break the day into segments. We discussed aspects of story techniques, The Hero’s Journey, plotting, prose, poetry, verse novels, middle grade, fantasy, young adult novels, picture books, history, and research.We also did several hands-on writing exercises – things the teachers could take back with them to the classroom to use with their students. (Here’s a link to info about The Creative Diary; a classroom hands-on writing workshop as an example of what authors do when they visit schools.)

Since we have the most awesome readers here at From the Mixed-Up Files, I’m including links to a few of our handouts from the day. Use them for yourself or your own kids or the students in your classroom.The ones below were created by the wonderful author and former elementary school teacher, Caroline Starr Rose of MAY B fame.

1. Easy Stick Man Character Sketch

2. Where in the World are We Reading?

3. Book Travel Log with Specific Writing Exercises and Games

I paired up with Kersten Hamilton and we spent one of the slots of time discussing Fantasy: all types and genres, but more importantly, the great way fantasy books can be used with kids to expand their minds and their creativity. Books with even just a splash of magical realism can get kids to enlarge their reading horizons into other more *serious* books, like historical novels or straight contemporary stories – step by step. (See my Handout below for title ideas).

I created a PDF about fantasy books for Middle-Grade and Young Adult readers. I DEFINE each fantasy GENRE (there are 11!) as well give 3-4 EXAMPLES of current books for each genre. And here it is for easy download:

THE VIEW FROM UNDER THE UMBRELLA OF FANTASY

Our IRA Panel of Authors (in case you’re curious):

Carolee Dean

Uma Krishnaswami

Carolyn Meyer

April Halprin Wayland

Esther Hershenhorn

Caroline Starr Rose

Kersten Hamilton

Lisa Schroeder

Kimberley Griffiths Little

Hope the links and Handouts help you in your own reading and teaching adventures!

Kimberley turns in her proofread typeset pages of her next novel (Spring, 2013), WHEN THE BUTTERFLIES CAME *today* and will be napping this afternoon. (*crosses fingers*)

If you’d like to see the dazzling cover Scholastic’s design team and artist Erin McGuire created, go here to take a peek and enter the NINE book giveaway on her blog: www. kimberleygriffithslittle.blogspot.com

Hope you’ve noticed MUF’s big 2nd anniversary giveaway.  On June 14, someone will win a Nook and a $25 Barnes & Noble gift card to fire that baby up!  There’s still time to enter–see the post below.

Meanwhile, the five lucky winners of the new Worst Case Scenario novel are:

C. Lee McKenzie, Heather Temske, Bruce Luck, Pragmatic Mom and Jennifer Malone

Congratulations!  You’ll be getting an e-mail from us shortly.

I have a confession to make.

As a child, every year, I signed up for the Summer Reading Program at my town’s library.

I wrote my name on the contract. I received my little chart or check list or fill-in-the-blank card. I checked out a stack of books.

And I never got further than half-way through the chart. Never. Ever.

Why?

Part of it could be lack of follow through. I was the type of child who would start something with a great frenzy of enthusiasm but then get distracted after a few weeks.

It could have been the lure of the pool, where my friends hung out daily, smelling of chlorine and Jays Potato chips.

But the largest fault, I believe, lay with the library’s mystery section. You see, I could never get enough of them. I would have a historical fiction book in my hands, or a required biography or science fiction, when I’d spy a title like “The Hidden Staircase Mystery” or “The Clue of Black Lake” and I’d be gone. The biography was tossed aside and I’d be ten pages into the mystery before The Life Of Benjamin Franklin hit the carpet. Before I knew it, poor Mr. Franklin was propping up a table leg while I was walking out the door with a stack of spine-tinglers.

Did I have a narrow reading interest?  Yes.

Did reading only mysteries limit my vocabulary? Probably.

Did all those mysteries make my reading life suffer? Not necessarily.

While I am a big fan of library reading programs as a parent (yes, my kids all completed them!) and I am in favor of introducing young readers to different genres of writing, I also know, as a reader, there is no better feeling than being chest-deep in a book you just looooove. I read every Nancy Drew I could afford or borrow. I checked out every book in the library mystery section. Reading became something I did, a lot. It became a habit. I would forgo the pool. I would not answer the phone. I would pretend I was sick, all to finish my current book. Those little mysteries made me into the reader I am today.

When my first born started eating pureed food, I gave her pretty standard fare – pears, peaches, green beans – whatever we happened to be eating. But on the store shelves, I’d see jars of sweet potatoes and beets and prunes and I worried that I wasn’t giving her enough variety. I brought this up to my pediatrician who shrugged and said, “Some kids in other countries eat the same food every day. And they grow just fine.” My daughter grew up healthy and strong. In fact, she now towers over me. She also eats a wide variety of foods now that she has matured.

The same is true for my reading. Though I grew up on a diet of straight mysteries, I now enjoy a variety of books, and enjoy reading across the genres. I became a Reader.

A reader who just may, one day, actually finish a summer reading program.

Beverly Patt has just finished writing the first draft of her third historical fiction novel – which also contains a mysterious twist, to satisfy the young reader still inside.   Visit her at www.beverlypatt.com.