January 2008 Passages Newsletter

2008 Newbery Medal Announced

In Good Masters! Sweet Ladies! Voices from a Medieval Village by Laura Amy Schlitz, thirteenth-century England springs to life using 21 dramatic individual narratives that introduce young inhabitants of village and manor; from Hugo, the lord's nephew, to Nelly, the sniggler. Schlitz's elegant monologues and dialogues draw back the curtain on the period, revealing character and relationships, hinting at stories untold. Explanatory interludes add information and round out this historical and theatrical presentation.

2008 Caldecott Medal Announced

The American Library Association just announced the 2008 winner of the Caldecott Medal is The Invention of Hugo Cabret by Brian Selznick. From an opening shot of the full moon setting over an awakening Paris in 1931, this tale casts a new light on the picture book form. Hugo is a young orphan secretly living in the walls of a train station where he labors to complete a mysterious invention left by his father. In a work of more than 500 pages, the suspenseful text and wordless double-page spreads narrate the tale in turns. Neither words nor pictures alone tell this story, which is filled with cinematic intrigue. Black & white pencil illustrations evoke the flickering images of the silent films to which the book pays homage.

On-Line Conference in Interpretive Writing

If you work in a museum and have wondered about the written side of interpretation, this on-line seminar at the MuseumED web site might be something to investigate. It's February 20-21, 2008.

Hot Competition for "New Harmonies"

Thirty-three Missouri towns want to host the touring Smithsonian exhibit on American "roots music" when it comes around in 2009. That's how many applications we received by the end of December, and it indicates a huge degree of interest in programs about music in our lives. We will only have the exhibit long enough to serve six of the thirty-three towns, though, so the level of competition will be pretty high, and we'll have to assure good distribution. Thanks to everyone who applied! We will announce the six host communities next month.

How to Select Children's Books by Julie Douglas

Devoted to Books At a recent READ from the START program, a mother told of her little daughter who was hopelessly, completely in love with a book. In this article I'll show you how to pick them. -- Julie Douglas

Twain Museum Lesson Plans Appeal to Thousands

To be specific, the Mark Twain Museum in Hannibal has tallied over 18,000 downloads of lesson plans from its web site. Many of the lesson plans were created in teachers' institutes that we supported. There is visionary thinking behind the museum's cultivation of teachers. The Museum realized that it depends on a national population that loves the stories of Mark Twain. So it has moved powerfully in a direction that stimulates great teaching! Look at the ways the museum encourages teachers...there is even an annual cash prize for "Creative Teaching." The deadline for submitting an application for that prize is March 15.

The Impact of a Governor's Humanities Award

This is our last call for nominations for the 2008 Governor's Humanities Awards. The annual ceremony at the Governor's Mansion is always a high point in our year. People bring family and friends from all over the state, and several former award-winners make a point of coming back to be a part of the occasion. You can scarcely imagine what this kind of award means to the recipients. (Look for details and nomination forms on our web site. They are due by January 25 to Megan-Marie K. Cahill.)

In hopes of showing the profound effect of this award, I want to share a letter from John O. Roberts, an award-recipient from St. Clair. His account exemplifies just one of our award categories. We hope you will look at the categories of award and see if you know of a person or an organization that is deserving.

An Interactive Document Exhibit, by Greg Olson

Greg Olson at Missouri State Archives is a member of a small think-tank I meet with on the subject of visitor-centered thinking. He has created a remarkable experiment at the State Information Center to see if he can interest a variety of visitors in the connection between documents and historical paintings. His account of this project provides a lot of food for thought.

Civil War Podcasting at the Border War Network

They've achieved liftoff! I mean the twenty history organizations who are learning the ways and means of digital recording, oral history interviews, and podcasting. I'm so impressed! First, look at the map that shows the location of each site in the network. When you hover your mouse over any site, you see its name. Click on the site and up pops a description of the place with contact information. Click on Stories and you go to an index of all the podcasts the network has produced in the last couple of months.

Here is one that I think is a great example of how quickly this network creates know-how. Click on the podcast about "Sarah Osborne, Civil War Soldier." The announcer on this podcast is Candace Walker, Education Director at the John Wornall House Museum in Kansas City. A week before she made this podcast with Melva Hargett, Candace didn't know what a podcast was and hadn't been to a meeting of the Border War Network. I told Candace about the podcasting project and she made a bee-line to Harrisonville for some training. Yikes! Look at how fast things turn around when a group of people form a win-win project for themselves!

"My Pioneer Experience" at Living History Farms

My colleague, Julie, has a remarkable background. Besides being a writer and a former Kindergarten teacher, she worked at the Living History Farms in Iowa. I asked her to write a piece about visitor-centered thinking there, and she worked it up over the Christmas break.
--Michael Bouman

Walter Bargen Named MO Poet Laureate

I was very pleased to see that Governor Matt Blunt appointed Walter Bargen of Ashland to be Missouri's first Poet Laureate. Walter gave several talks and readings through our Speakers Bureau in 2001-2002. He is highly regarded among Missouri writers, and this appointment gives serious writing a real boost. Walter has an elegant web site of his own, where you can see about his many awards and books. -- Michael Bouman

i phone, i tune, and now i tube by Michael Bouman

All the buzz I've tried to stir up about podcasting led to a recent purchase of an iPhone, and therein lies a tale of discovery that I decided to share in my January 14 blog. In it you'll find links to a few of my favorite tunes in their video form on YouTube.