How to talk to kids about God; Rabbi Bradley Artson offers parents this script - Cleveland Jewish News

Brown, Ellen Schur
Cleveland Jewish News
01-07-2005
Parents talk to kids about sports, about school, about what's for dinner.
We freely answer our children's questions about politics and interpersonal
relationships. Why, when they ask about God, do we squirm in our chairs or
tell them, 'Ask a rabbi'?

Parents needn't be intimidated when children ask difficult questions, said
Rabbi Bradley Shavit Artson, co-author of I Have Some Questions about God
(Torah Aura Productions, 2002. 118 pp. $11.95), who spoke here at the
United Jewish Communities General Assembly in November.

In I Have Some Questions, six different rabbis answer real questions from
kids -- and they don't always offer the same answers.

When children ask about God or why bad things happen, Artson, dean of the
Ziegler School of Rabbinic Studies of California's University of Judaism,
encourages parents to start talking. His best hint for parents is to tell
children that no one has all the answers.

'It's all right to give an answer like, `Well some people think this, but
other scholars think this,' or `Great question -- let's look it up,'' he
said. Just entering the conversation sends the message that talking about
religion is important to you.

'Don't say, `Ask the rabbi,' because that's code for saying real people
don't worry about this,' he said.

Here are some common questions kids ask about God -- and a way to start a
conversation.

1. Who made God? Does God have a Mommy?

This is a question about the nature of God's existence. Maimonides teaches
that physical things have a beginning and an end, but God is not a physical
thing. God has no beginning and no end.

Feel free to tell your child this is a very big question, and people spend
their whole lives thinking about it, Artson suggested. Emphasize that there
is no single right answer.

2. How do we know God is real?

Artson has a handy trick: Ask your child to touch your arm or your
forehead. Easy. Now ask the child to touch your love. Tell your child, 'You
can't touch my love because it's not a physical thing. But you feel it, and
you know it's real.'

We sometimes make the mistake of thinking things are most real when they
are concrete. That's backwards, said Artson. Patriotism, virtue and loyalty
are more real than the clock in your first apartment. Even though you saw
that clock every day, you probably can't remember it now.

3. Did God make everything? Did God make dinosaurs?

Even very young children see this problem because they learn there are no
dinosaurs roaming the world, and yet, here's Barney, a big purple dinosaur
on TV. Are grownups lying? They are really asking how to integrate science
and belief.

Explain that there are different kinds of questions. Science answers 'How'
questions like, `How does the sun light up the earth?' Religion answers
'Why' questions, and when it's a question of meaning, we find truth in the
Torah.

The Torah is a poem, meant to be read as metaphor, commented Artson.
Genesis may not be factually scientific, but we can stake our lives on the
truth of the story that God created humans. 'That all people are created
equally is a religious concept,' he continued, because clearly some people
are more intelligent, more beautiful or more athletic than others. 'If your
child agrees that all people are created equal, then they believe in the
Torah, and they believe that God created everything.'

4. Why did Grandpa have to die?

When children ask about death, it's often the deal breaker for their
believing in God, suggested Artson. He offers this analogy for children:
When you get a haircut, your hair is on the floor, but that's not you on
the floor.

'You use your body in this world, but you are not your body,' he said.
'When a loved one no longer needs that body, we take care of it to show
respect and love for the dead person, but now their spirit is with God.'

Many Jews don't realize that Judaism believes in life after death, Artson
Added, because to them it sounds like a Christian concept.

5. Why did my Mom get sick? Why do bad things happen -- like, for example,
the recent earthquake and tsunamis?

People want suffering to be some kind of divine punishment, but that's not
always the case. Explain that there are different reasons why human beings
suffer, Artson counseled, whether it's a natural disaster (like a tsunami)
or a personal tragedy (like not getting picked for the soccer team).

The universe works in a certain way. Physical things end. They crumble or
die, or they are destroyed by fire or flood. That's the nature of the
physical world.

'You may feel sad, but you can't blame God,' said Artson.

Because people are free, they are free to do bad things and abuse their
freedom. If people could only do the right thing, there would be no free
will. 'So when Nazis kill Jews, that's not God's problem, it's humanity's
problem;' he said.

In one ancient legend, there is a secret room in the heavens where God goes
to cry because of all the terrible things people do to each other.

In the face of tragedy, we can praise God by helping to comfort the
survivors and giving tsedakah, according to the book I Have Some Questions.

Never tell children that suffering is not bad or that it's for the best in
the long term.

Sometimes just validating the question helps children find their own
answers, Artson concluded. 'Ask children what they think, because sometimes
what they want to know is much simpler than the question we think they're
asking,' he said. You'll be surprised when you clarify the question how
often children come up with great answers for themselves.

Article copyright the Cleveland Jewish News.
V.95;

Author talks to kids about the difference between being poor and being broke. - Herald & Review (Decatur, IL)

Byline: Valerie Wells

Jan. 12--DECATUR -- John W. Fountain did not grow up 'poor,' though he thought so at the time.

'I used to say, as a kid, that I was poor,' Fountain told Renee Saunches' fifth-graders at South Shores School on Wednesday. 'Later I learned I wasn't poor, just broke. I may not have had everything I needed, but I had people who cared about me, who loved me.'

Fountain is the author of 'True Vine,' an account of how a combination of faith, determination and encouragement from people who loved him helped him escape the fate of many of his childhood friends. True Vine is the name of the church where his grandfather was pastor in the Chicago neighborhood where Fountain grew up, and his grandmother was such a significant influence on his life that he dedicated his book to her.

Saunches read the book last summer and was so impressed she wrote to him to tell him she'd bought copies for her sister, daughter and best friend and intended to recommend it to her students' parents, too.

One thing she loved about it was that Fountain told his story unflinchingly, but without any inappropriate language or content that she or her students' parents would find unsuitable for the kids.

'It's an adult book,' Saunches said, 'but anybody in this class could read it without reservation.'

His message, Fountain told the students, is that education is the key to making your life what you want it to be.

'You have a better chance of being hit by lightning than making it into the NBA,' he told the class. 'Some of the best basketball players I've ever seen were on the west side of Chicago. And you know what? They're still on the west side of Chicago, playing on the playground.'

Making it in professional sports is as much a matter of luck as skill, he said, but if you study to be an engineer, you will be an engineer.

Students were already familiar with him, because in response to a request from Saunches he had sent a motivational poem that the students repeat every day.

'It makes me want to do something for the world,' said Jared Sheppard, 11. 'So I'm going to be in the Army someday.'

Tyler Taylor, also 11, said Fountain's example makes it clear that she can only achieve her dreams by avoiding anything that could hamper her.

And when Saunches asked her class, after Fountain's talk, to tell her what they'd learned from him, Marcus Lahr put it succinctly:

'To get, you have to give.'

Valerie Wells can be reached at vwells@;herald-review.com or 421-7982.

Copyright (c) 2006, Herald & Review, Decatur, Ill.

Distributed by Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News.

Oz is new kid in Hall - The Record (Bergen County, NJ)

00-00-0000
Oz is new kid in Hall -- Wizard takes Yellow Brick Road to Cooperstown By JOHN KEKIS, THE ASSOCIATED PRESS Date: 07-29-2002, Monday Section: SPORTS Edtion: All Editions.=.Two Star B. Two Star P. One Star B Biographical: OZZIE SMITH

COOPERSTOWN, N.Y. - Go crazy, folks! The Wizard is in the Hall of Fame.

Fighting back a tear or two, Ozzie Smith joined baseball's elite Sunday, accepting his position in the pantheon of great stars of yesteryear with a wonderful speech that aptly described his storybook life.

"This is tough," Smith, the only former player to be elected this year, said, halting to brush away a tear after his son, Dustin, read the inscription on his plaque. "I've faced many challenges in my career, and if I was to rank them by difficulty, this moment in Cooperstown would rank at the top of the list. It's almost an impossible task to express in 20 short minutes a journey that has taken me over 20 years to complete."

Not surprisingly, the man who took the defensive aspect of the shortstop position to another level during his 19-year career accomplished that - thanking everyone from his mom, Marvel, to his high school coach, to the man who brought him to St. Louis, former manager Whitey Herzog.

Comparing his life to Dorothy's journey down the Yellow Brick Road in the "Wizard of Oz" and holding a copy of the famed children's book in his hands, Smith recounted every critical aspect of his baseball life and detailed what made him a success: the mind to dream that the Scarecrow cherished, a heart to believe that the Tin Man ached for, and the c-c-c-c courage of the Lion to persevere.

"Ozzie Smith was a boy who decided to look within, a boy who discovered that absolutely nothing is good enough if it can be made better, a boy who discovered an old-fashioned formula that would take him beyond the rainbow, beyond even his wildest dreams," said Smith, who was flanked by 46 Hall of Famers, including former Cardinals greats Stan Musial, Bob Gibson, Lou Brock, and Red Schoendienst.

Smith, who holds six career fielding marks for shortstops, including most assists (8,375), double plays (1,590), and chances (12,624), revealed a couple of the secrets that made him such a deft fielder.

His first glove was a paper bag, and he used to lie on the floor of his house in the tough Watts section of Los Angeles, close his eyes and toss a baseball into the air, then catch it without looking at it. Over and over. He also would throw a baseball over the roof of the house, then try to run around and catch it.

"No, I never caught it," Smith, who won 13 straight NL Gold Glove awards, said with a smile. "But it never stopped me from trying. Luckily, I didn't just experience the dream for a moment and then dismiss it as foolishness."

Smith, also holding a baseball that was sliced in half, said the core of his journey was a dream that took shape in his heart one day when he was 12 while sitting on the front steps of his home.

"I remember I was exhausted from playing yet another game," he said. "I let the dream come into the playground of my mind. I embraced it. I embellished it to the point that I would select the position I would play."

Smith, 47, who retired after the 1996 season, said beforehand that he didn't know how he would react on the dais. There was no trademark back flip, but in a summer that has been hard on St. Louis fans with the deaths of longtime Cardinals broadcaster Jack Buck and pitcher Darryl Kile, Smith gave them and the audience of 19,000 present a reason to smile.

"I sincerely believe that there is nothing truly great in any man or woman, except their character, their willingness to move beyond the realm of self and into a greater realm of selflessness," Smith said before reading a poem he dedicated to the memory of Buck, whose call of Smith's game-winning home run against the Dodgers in the 1985 National League playoffs incited fans to 'Go crazy.'

"Giving back is the ultimate talent in life," Smith said. "That is the greatest trophy on my mantel."

Also honored were longtime Detroit sports writer Joe Falls, who was given the J.G. Taylor Spink Award for his six decades of work, and Phillies broadcaster Harry Kalas, who accepted the Ford C. Frick Award.

Illustrations/Photos: PHOTO - ASSOCIATED PRESS - Shortstop wizard Ozzie Smith wearing a wig as a joke while addressing the crowd during his Hall of Fame induction ceremony Sunday. Keywords: PROFESSIONAL, BASEBALL, ATHLETE

Kinsella a 'comeback kid' with quirky, captivating tale of baseball, butterflies - Winnipeg Free Press

The comeback kid -- the phenom whose prowess at bat and in life faltered, who famously recovers his potential at a critical moment to take his team to the top -- is a well-known baseball archetype.

At age 76, B.C.-based W.P. Kinsella is probably too old to be called a kid. But he has made a phenomenal comeback in his first novel since a car accident in 1997 impaired his ability to concentrate. The author of 1982's Shoeless Joe, which American actor Kevin Costner turned into the Hollywood hit Field of Dreams, Kinsella continues to give his treasured sport credibility in the literary world.

Baseball and butterflies converge in this fabulist magical-realist story, set in the mythic country of Courteguay, 'a tiny landlocked country nestled like a snail between Haiti and the Dominican Republic, in the shape of the moon of a fingernail, and not much larger.'

Crafted from two short stories Kinsella wrote in the 1980s, Butterfly Winter makes for a quirky, captivating read.

As in Gabriel Garcia Marquez's One Hundred Years of Solitude, it's important to keep track of the changing situation. Kinsella creates unique characters that die and rise again; his unreliable and manipulative narrator is a shape-shifting wizard with a taste for flashy capes.

Life in beautiful Courteguay is pleasant, but not dull. Baseball is the national obsession, such that prospective brides must prove they can play passably before the wedding can be held.

Born are a set of twins who remember playing catch in the womb. Julio and Estaban Pimental sleep opposite to each other in the crib -- Julio with his arm stretched in a sidearm curve, Estaban curled in a permanent catcher's crouch.

Julio is unbeatable, but he can only pitch to his mediocre brother, and the greedy big leagues snap them up while they are still small children. Kinsella uses their tenure there to comment on the racism the 'cinnamon' Central Americans experience in baseball despite their talent and numbers, and the convenient way born-again Christians interpret religion to rationalize infidelity, among other hypocrisies.

Although the story is full of humour, satire and irony, it also mirrors the history of Central America and the succession of tinpot dictators the U.S. helped install there for 100 years. The political sickness that plagued Central America infests the paradise of Courteguay, too, with similar violent, cruel results at the hands of a former chiropractor.

The battle to restore the balance of good over evil challenges the strategies and skills Julio and Estaban learned on the diamond; love adds further complications. It's like a baseball game -- unpredictable and heart-wrenching.

The narrative weaves back and forth in time; short chapters alternate mostly between the recollections of the lying Wizard and a gullible Gringo Journalist.

The journalist can't seem to sort the magical from the real, a task made especially difficult because of surprising plot twists.

While best known for his baseball stories, Kinsella's long list of credits includes moving Prairie novels (Box Socials, The Winter Helen Dropped By), poems and short story collections set on the First Nations community in Hobbema, Alta., Dance Me Outside, The Fencepost Chronicles and The Miss Hobbema Pageant, among others.

Now plagued by health problems, Kinsella has nevertheless regained his creativity, his sharp edge and writing prowess.

Published by the literary imprint of Winnipeg's Great Plains Publications, Butterfly Winter is a welcome return for one of Canada's most prolific and masterful writers, who reportedly finished another book this past summer.

Reading Kinsella, as the Wizard describes baseball, is like spending 'an afternoon beside a clear brook, birds singing, sun shining, flowers blooming.' Who could ask for more?

Harriet Zaidman is a teacher-librarian in Winnipeg.

Butterfly Winter

By W.P. Kinsella

Queen Latifah writes children's book to inculcate self-respect in kids - Hindustan Times (New Delhi, India)

Report from the Asian News International brought to you by the Hindustan Times

New York, Oct 29 -- Hip-hop legend and Oscar nominated actress Queen Latifah is probably best known to millions as the memorable Mama Morton in the blockbuster film Chicago.

And now, the rapper-turned-actress can also add 'children's book author' to her list of accomplishments, as she has written a book 'Queen of the Scene' that is meant to teach kids about self-respect.

The protagonist of the book is a brassy and ambitious young girl who dominates any sport or game she tackles from hoops to hopscotch.

'Really, the book is all about having a state of mind that makes you feel you can do anything,' The New York Daily News quoted Latifah, as saying.

'I wrote it for all the shy kids out there who are on the verge of trying something new but are afraid. It's for any kid who wants to be somebody ... whether they want to read a poem to the class or try out for the talent show or the lacrosse team,' the 36-year-old added.

Born Dana Owens to a police officer and a high school art teacher in Newark, Latifah takes confidence building seriously. Eariler she also wrote a book 'Ladies First: Revelations of a Strong Woman' (1999) to promote higher self-esteem in women.

Kids' Hallmark: Made by Hand - The Washington Post

IT'S THE HOLIDAY season-a time for exchanging greetings,entertaining friends and relatives, and, of course, giving andreceiving surprises! If you have children in the house, you've knownfor months the items topping their Christmas and Hanukah gift lists.Selecting gifts for kids is easy; the hard part is reminding themthat the holidays are for giving as well as receiving.

You can help instill this spirit and solve a few gift-ideadilemmas at the same time by encouraging your children to make theirown gifts for others-especially presents for adults in the family,including grandparents who often don't seem to need much of anything.

Last year we not only came up with a way to remind our 5-year-oldson how wonderful the giving part of the holidays can be, but alsoallowed him to create some memorable, one-of-a-kind presents. Theidea was simple: using fabric paint, he would hand paint inexpensivesweat shirts and sweat pants. The results were comfortable'designer' fashions with a smile.

Actually, it all worked out rather well. I was surprised byRyan's creativeness and it wasn't a big mess-a high priority in mybook this time of year. For his grandmother who lives in Florida andloves the beach, he drew an ocean scene complete with sea gulls anddolphin. For my bike-riding husband he drew all three of us onbicycles, then for high drama added a fire engine and burning housewith lots of black smoke on the side of one pant leg. I'm happy toreport this usually quite conservatively dressed man wears hiscustom-made outfit frequently.

Grandparents will probably chuckle over hand and footprintspressed up and down pant legs, scattered over a shirt-wherever youand your child think best (or, perhaps more accurately, wherever apaint-smeared hand happens to land). This is a cute way to decoratean outfit if your child is an infant.

You can also add a few words to go with the drawings. Since mymother is such a sport about getting down on the floor to play trucksand cars with our son, I wrote 'Grandsons keep you young' across thefront of her elaborately designed shirt. And on all of his creationsRyan added his own messages of love and that all-important signature.

Here are a few tips if you've never attempted this kind ofproject before:

Start a few days early. This is not a Christmas Eve ornight-before-Hanukah effort. Unless your child is a true artist atheart, he or she may not have the patience to do more than one shirtat a time.

Fabric paints and crayons are available at most craft stores,and will include specific instructions. Fabric crayons may be easierfor young hands to master but, even when applied according toinstructions, I've had trouble with their fading after a fewwashings. I've had more success with fabric paints.

Keep anything you don't want painted out of the way, and don'twear good clothes as you assist your little artist. Fabric paints donot wash out of clothes; a mistake is a mistake is a mistake. Don'tforget to put cardboard or aluminum foil inside the garment to keepthe paint from soaking through to the other side.

If possible, have your children draw their designs with chalk orpencil first. But if they eyeball that new tube of scarlet andinsist on having at it with wanton abandon, try to grin and bear it.After all, it's their present to make and to give.

There are other ways to incorporate your children's talents intospecial gifts. Since we did shirts last year, I've decided toattempt something new this holiday. With our son's help, I plan tocompose an 'original' poem about little boys, then ask my artisticbrother to write the words in calligraphy on attractive vellum. Tofinish, Ryan can stamp his handprints beneath the poem and I'll haveit framed.

If you aren't feeling creative, 'Granger's Index to Poetry'(Columbia University Press) or a book of quotations such as 'The HomeBook of Quotations,' selected by Burton Stevenson (Dodd, Mead &Company), may help you find appropriate words.

If your children are extremely articulate, you may want toconsider playing newscaster with them. Record on audio or videotapea holiday 'This Is Your Life' interview focusing on theiraccomplishments during the year, current interests and specialmessages for relatives. You could also ask your children to producetheir own tape. Perhaps they could assign everyone in the family aparticular role (meteorologist, reporter, anchor, etc.) and be incharge of a family television or radio program. Audio and videotapesare especially nice if you won't be able to spend the holidays withrelatives.

And finally, for those of you with little literary types in thehousehold, why not ask them to write and design a book? You couldhelp by typing in the words (their words, no cheating even to correctgrammatical errors), then let them illustrate the pages. The bookcould be tailored for the recipient ('When I Stay With Grandma,''Helping Uncle Roger on the Farm,' etc.). Punch holes, tie ittogether with yarn, and you have an attractive little bestseller(well, sort of) for grandma and grandpa.

Another plus for letting children make special gifts is thelesson they learn about the fun of keeping secrets. You may beamazed to find out how well they can keep the surprise a surpriseonce they are in on a project. And encouraging children to create agift-out of love and by using their own talents-can help us all getback to the real meaning of the holidays.

KIDS CORNER - The Buffalo News (Buffalo, NY)

Treasuring summer

I remember:

The sun shining on my face.

The thoughts that drift along in my mind.

Riding a bike along a never-ending road.

Smelling the freshly cut grass.

Wishing for something that couldn't be granted.

Lying alone in a field thinking to myself, life is good.

Trying to touch a star that you know you can't.

The endless day that was once present but now past.

-- Matt Shiesley, 12,

Williamsville

Untitled

Sayanora swallowed salad

in Shreveport

Scheherazade smelled something

smelly in Switzerland

Syania sat on a shark

while savoring starfish

Sorlane was shy in Spain

Shannon sung in the shower

Susie saw skittles in her

spaghetti

-- Ajalon Williams, Buffalo

Love

Love can be warm

Love can be cold.

Love can be new

Love can be old.

These are my feelings

Now I have told.

-- Holly Tomasello, 10,

Williamsville

Toys and toys

Toys, toys

Won't you play with my toys.

I wish you would

I wish you could.

Would you, could you

Play with me?

-- Bryan Szarletta, 9,

Williamsville

Butterflies

Butterflies are all different

Colors like red, pink, yellow, orange and green

They fly about everywhere

You know what I mean

The one I found is very pretty

Sometimes he looks very silly

He flies around everywhere

Showing off his stripes of pink and red

He flies off in front of my friends

He's showing off I think

-- Cara Petrucci, 7, Buffalo

The so-called game

Some say it's just a game,

To me it's life

Hockey

The true sport of life,

we need no cheerleaders just our sticks, skates and souls

Gliding, shooting, passing, checking and the always present

SCORE!!

The sweet sensation of scoring, and the feeling of coldness

when you walk into the rink

and tie up your skates

Getting up at 6 in the morning just to practice

The sweat pouring

down your face,

the burn in your muscles from

pushing your body past the limit,

Hockey

The tournaments, getting less than seven hours of sleep

Having the last game of the tourney come to a shoot-out

Scoring the winning goal

of the shoot-out and

being presented with

the gorgeous trophy

Hockey

When the whistle blows it is no more fun and games

IT IS LIFE!!

Hockey

-- Joey Gawlak, 13, Clarence

Kids hook prizes for whopping fish tales.(Neighbor) - Daily Herald (Arlington Heights, IL)

Byline: Connie Powers

How did all those monster goldfish get into Lake Ellyn?

That's the question kids answered to enter the Glen Ellyn Park District's 'Whopping Tale' contest.

'It's basically the biggest lie you could think of in 150 words or less,' said Mary Defiglia, recreation supervisor for the park district.

Entrants with the wildest stories in their age division were declared winners.

Emily Kowalski, 8, won her division with her theory that the goldfish dropped into the lake during a storm when it 'rained geese and goldfish.'

Another winner, Mark Miller, 11, wrote about a boy who, while wearing a goldfish-printed swimsuit, was yanked into Lake Ellyn by a huge fish. After climbing out, the boy noticed his suit was blank, and the fish that had decorated it were now swimming in the lake.

Elizabeth Kos, 13, took the prize for her division with her tale of sinister goldfish who chose Lake Ellyn as their headquarters for world domination.

Kevin Sobocinski, winner of the ninth-grade through adult division, credits a fictional character named John Gold, who helped dig the hole for Glen Ellyn. While excavating, Gold stumbled upon a little dead fish and placed it into the lake. The fish's spirit looked favorably on Gold's good deed, so the next day the lake was filled with his namesake fish.

Children also entered poems, art, even a newspaper, complete with headlines, horoscopes and a sports page, all about fish.

'They weren't what we asked for, but we sure couldn't discount them; they were so good,' Defiglia said about the atypical entries. 'We ended up creating a couple more categories.'

Most Creative Whopping Fish Tale went to the newspaper entry by Brian Connelly, 12, and Kevin Klein, 12. Honorable Mention for Best Whopping Fish Tale Poem was awarded to Emily Peck, 12, while Most Artistic Whopping Fish Tale went to Kristy Eggert, 13.

Winners will present their whoppers at the park district's annual fishing derby June 21 at Lake Ellyn Park, 645 Lenox Road, Glen Ellyn.

The event will be expanded beyond fishing this year to include games, crafts and a 'special aquarium,' in which several of Glen Ellyn's 'big fish' - Fire Chief Stu Stone, County Board member Mike Formento, and Village President Joe Wark - will be dunked.

The event runs from 9 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. June 21. Registration is $5 for residents, $7.50 for nonresidents, and participants should bring their own fishing poles.

For more information, call (630) 858-2462.

Chalk art

The community is invited to see Ben Glenn, a nationally known chalk artist, present his program of 'Living Art' at 9:40 a.m. Sunday at First Presbyterian Church of Glen Ellyn in the fellowship hall, 500 Anthony St., Glen Ellyn.

Using brightly colored chalk on a black screen lit with spotlights, Glenn tells stories that challenge and inspire preschoolers through adults.

'Its something that's good for all ages,' said Trevecca Okholm, director of Christian education for the church.

The program is free.

WASHINGTON TODAY: Fictional critters teach kids about Supreme Court - AP Online

LAURIE ASSEO Associated Press Writer
AP Online
06-19-1998
WASHINGTON (AP) _ There are mice at the Supreme Court, but do not call the exterminators. These are friendly critters, portraying the justices themselves in a new book intended to teach children about the Constitution and the highest court in the land.

``Marshall, the Courthouse Mouse: A Tail of the U.S. Supreme Court'' uses drawings and verse to take kids on a tour of the court building and explain how the justices go about interpreting the nation's laws.

``We're trying to teach children about government in a fun and interesting way,'' says Peter W. Barnes of Alexandria, Va., who wrote the book with his wife, illustrator Cheryl Shaw Barnes. ``They're learning without realizing that they're learning.''

The book shares space in the court's gift shop with another child-oriented volume, ``Travels with Max!'' a koala who interviews the chief justice about how the court works. The book, written by Nancy Ann Van Wie of Laguna Hills, Calif., uses picture clues and math problems to help children answer questions about the court.

The mouse justices in the Barnes' book stand upright, and they dress an awful lot like the real members of the court.

The mouse chief justice wears four gold stripes on the upper arms of his robe, just like those worn by Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist. One mouse has a bow tie, like Justice John Paul Stevens, and the women mice sport ruffled collars like those favored by Justices Sandra Day O'Connor and Ruth Bader Ginsburg.

The drawings show the mouse justices on the bench in the stately courtroom and meeting in their private conference room, and depict their mouse clerks doing research in the court's beautiful library.

The color illustrations are quite accurate, except that mice replace the human figures in the pediment over the building's massive entrance, in the courtroom friezes and in the library's woodwork.

Then there are the turtles - one hidden somewhere in every drawing for a sharp-eyed child to find. The real Supreme Court has sculptures of turtles too, representing the slow and steady path of justice.

The mouse justices have a case to decide: Can the Mouse Congress require everyone to eat a certain kind of cheese each day?

The poem takes readers from oral arguments to the justices' private conference and the announcement of a ruling. In an authentic-looking printed decision, the court strikes down the law and declares freedom of cheese for everyone.

The story closes, ``Each decision makes sure that we all understand that our great Constitution is the law of the land!''

Children who read Van Wie's book about Max, the traveling koala, find out who was the first chief justice (John Jay), who was the only president who also served as chief justice, (William Howard Taft), and what happens during an oral argument.

They learn that the nine justices always shake hands with all their colleagues before each court session, and they learn about one of the most important court rulings affecting children: the 1954 Brown vs. Board of Education decision that outlawed racial segregation in public schools.

The koala is intended to help kids relate to the idea of laws and courts.

``If it's taught properly, I think children can understand it easily,'' says Van Wie, whose book came out in 1994. ``They're not intimidated, but adults are. You say 'judicial branch' and they say, 'whoa, forget it.'''

Because of the legal subject matter, she and the Barneses say these books were harder to create than their books about Congress and the White House. Court officials helped them get the details right. In fact, Van Wie's book was commissioned by the Supreme Court Historical Society.

In putting together the courthouse mouse book, Barnes said he and his wife ``wanted to make sure kids understand there are things called laws and they're important.''

As Cheryl Barnes said, it's ``a mice way to learn about government.''

---

EDITOR'S NOTE - Laurie Asseo covers the Supreme Court and legal issues for The Associated Press.


Copyright 1998 The Associated Press All Rights Reserved.

Mom-inspired film benefits 'Kids Fund' - The Buffalo News (Buffalo, NY)

The day Mike Powell heard his mother had been diagnosed withbreast cancer changed his life forever.

'She [Susan Powell] has taught me to value my life even more,'said Mike Powell, who was in town Wednesday to promote 'A LacrosseMovie,' a documentary that chronicles the life of SyracuseUniversity's career scoring leader.

'You have to live life to its fullest,' he said. 'I've tried todo it every day since then. She told me to never worry about her,that it's a disease and she'd beat it. And she did [about four yearsago]. Lance Armstrong says he thinks cancer helped him. I think mymom having it helped me.'

Now Mike Powell is working with Fastbreak Lacrosse Camp, Brineand Dick's Sporting Goods to help other lacrosse families withsimilar problems. The film will make its Western New York premiereat the Sweet Home High School auditorium at 6:30 p.m. on Feb. 23.Proceeds go to the Western New York Lacrosse for Kids Fund.

'When cancer touches your life in any form, you want to give backand kill this thing,' Powell said. 'We had the opportunity with theLacrosse for Kids Foundation. I jumped at the chance to help thosewho have been stricken.'

Tickets to the premiere can be purchased at www.fastbreakwny.comfor $8 per person, or $20 with a copy of the DVD. At the door,tickets for the movie will cost $10 and the DVD will go for $15. Theauditorium seats about 800 and tickets are sold on a first-comebasis.

Jeremy Murphy, spokesman for WNY Lacrosse for Kids, said the goalis to fill every seat. 'That will really help lacrosse families helpother lacrosse families,' he said.

Powell, a four-time first-team All-American at Syracuse from 2001-04, was a two-time winner of the Tewaaraton Trophy (collegelacrosse's version of the Heisman Trophy) and led the Orange totitles in 2002 and '04, when he was named the NCAA Tournament's MostOutstanding Player. He scored 150 goals with 157 assists at Syracusefor 307 points -- 20 more than his older brothers Casey (1995-98)and Ryan (1997-2000) each tallied for the Orange.

'It chronicles my whole life in 30 minutes,' Mike Powell said. 'Iprovided old footage of my childhood, my high school days [atCarthage, N.Y.], it includes college and touches on the pros [hehelped the Baltimore Bayhawks win the championship of Major LeagueLacrosse last summer].

'An 8-millimeter camera was used to make it edgy and raw. That'smore my style and personality. I wanted it to be authentic to thesport, I didn't want it to be 'MTV Cribs.' It's not all lacrossehighlights, it's much more intimate.'

Powell, 23, is anything but a typical jock. As a senior atSyracuse, his creative juices took over when he ran down the fieldand did a flip before taking a shot on goal.

'I'll get in slumps with the game of lacrosse playing like Inormally play it,' Powell said. 'I'll sit down and write a song or apoem, or I'll paint some. That frees my mind and lets me know that Ihave to do my own thing, be my own player. That's kind of whatinspired me to do the flip.'

Powell sings and plays guitar, and has spent time in a recordingstudio since leaving SU. The music world has been harder for him toconquer than lacrosse.

'It's hard to deny who the great lacrosse players are,' Powellsaid. 'Basically, you pick up a ball and shoot it into the net. Ithink that's why I like music so much. It's a chance for me to bemyself and to carve my own path. Music for me has always been arelease. When lacrosse wears on you and turns into a job, like itdid when I was in college, music is my saving grace.'

Casey, who's 29, 26-year-old Ryan, whose Portland LumberJax meetthe Buffalo Bandits at HSBC Arena on Friday night, and Mike willparticipate in a question and answer session and an autographsigning at the premiere.

6 reading clubs for kids in Lake County.(Neighbor) - Daily Herald (Arlington Heights, IL)

Byline: Kristin Larson

Who said book clubs were only for adults? Young readers can take delight in book clubs, too. From mysteries to adventures, reading good books can open doors to places only the mind can travel. And what better way to pass the winter blues than with a good book and some hot cocoa?

Plus, many of the reading clubs listed below offer parents and kids a chance to join a club together - thereby doing something fun and meaningful at the same time. So grab your library card and head to your local library to sign up for a young people's reading club.

COOK MEMORIAL PUBLIC LIBRARY

This year's winter reading club theme is 'You, Me & the Poet-Tree.' In the club, participants can decorate trees with their favorite or original poem and read a variety of poetry books in the library's collection. Independent and early readers may pick up a reading log at the children's desk through March. The library is located at 413 N. Milwaukee Ave. in downtown Libertyville. Call (847) 362-2330.

WAUCONDA AREA PUBLIC LIBRARY

Wauconda Area Public Library's children department has started its family reading club called 'Share A Good Book With Someone You Love.' Adults and children should register together at the library.

Each family that completes its goal of reading 300 pages and turning in a reading log by Feb. 22 will receive a free paperback book and a gift certificate. Wauconda Area Public Library is located at 801 N. Main St. Call (847) 526-6225, ext. 212.

VERNON AREA PUBLIC LIBRARY

Vernon Area Public Library's youth winter reading club will continue through Feb. 19. Titled 'Follow the Reading Road,' the winter club is open to preschoolers through eighth-graders.

A highlight of being a reading club member is the winter club reading party Feb. 20. At the party, actor and clown Craig Sjogerman will present a storytelling program where youths can meet the tricksters, fools and clowns from coyote of Native American legends to Loki.

Registration to attend the party will begin Tuesday. The library is located at 300 Olde Half Day Road in Lincolnshire. Call (847) 634-3650.

WARREN-NEWPORT PUBLIC LIBRARY

This winter, a 'Pick-a-Patch and Read' reading program will be offered for children in third through eighth grades. Beginning today, kids can sign up at the library or in the bookmobile. Being a program member has its advantages, too. For example, reading books from a variety of categories can earn kids sewable patches for hats, jackets and backpacks. A total of 10 books must be read to earn a patch. Various reading categories include adventure, animals, fantasy, humor, mystery, sports and science fiction.

Names of those who finish will be entered into a drawing for prizes at the end of the program. The program is sponsored by staff in the youth services and outreach departments. Warren-Newport Library is located at 224 N. O'Plaine Road in Gurnee. Call (847) 244-5150.

GRAYSLAKE AREA PUBLIC LIBRARY

Families may register at Grayslake Area Public Library's Winter Reading program until Feb. 12. In the reading club, participants can set their own reading goals in order to earn prizes and become Library Super Sleuths. When all registered family members have met their goals, the family will be entered in a drawing for more prizes.

Grayslake Area Public Library is located at 100 Library Lane. Call (847) 223-5313.

FREMONT PUBLIC LIBRARY

Where it's at with the kids - The Herald

radio review by - Go4It (Radio 4) - The Borscht Belt (Radio 4)-The Jimmy Logan Story (Radio Scotland) - Fred MacAulay (RadioScotland) The cool street-cred kid credentials explode from thetitle: Go4It. Britney and Beckham are cool. Boyzone are just sooolast year. You gotta keep alert when dealing with this pre-teengroup. One pop faux-pas and you're outta here. Radio 4 wanted toknow where it was at with the kids and the kids told 'em. The titleof the station's new magazine programme aimed at the eight- to 10-year-old audience was chosen by a wised-up eight-year-old.

Radio 4 is bravely fighting cynicism and retro-Listen with Motherslurs. There is a tendency in children and parents alike to squirmin the face of such concerted efforts to entertain children via theancient medium of radio. Coxy or the top 40 in the Radio 1 morningis fine - but a Sunday magazine programme?

Go4It doesn't proclaim to be an alternative to Playstation,merely another option. And not bad either, judging by its debutouting. Hosted by the big-brotherly presenter Matt Smith, we get amix of pop, poetry, sport, and movies. Hear'say were taken aback bythe cynical eight-year-old interviewer who asked how long it wouldbe until they broke up. Olympic rower Steve Redgrave similarlysweated it out, while a granny and grandson's review of Spykids wasinspired. Good old-fashioned competitions, jokes, and poems balancedup the e-mail address and website correspondence.

One very big grouch, however, is the preponderance of estuary-English accents. One hopes Radio 4 realises children across Britainneed to hear their own accents.

Oy weh! was the Jewish cry echoing round the Catskills of the1950s. Comedian Tony Hawks took a trip back in time to the popularJewish holiday area dubbed The Borscht Belt on Radio 4. It was herein the hotels and clubs north of New York that comedians cut theirteeth on a very choosy audience. Woody Allen, Sid Caesar, ShelleyWinters, and Mel Brooks all plied their trade on post-war Jewsholidaying in a home from home.

Interviewing many men called Bernie, Hawks was treated to aselection of the old-timers' routines and bad jokes, though MickeyFreeman - who played Private Zimmerman in The Phil Silvers Show -magically re- created the yesteryear atmosphere in which roller-skating teams composed of Jewish refugees were on the same bill asvery bad bands singing about Israel. Sadly, the Catskills havedeclined in popularity and now depend on the conventions and singlesweekends for their trade. Woody Allen could have a field day withthat material.

Radio Scotland's timely tribute to the Godfather of Scottishentertainment in The Jimmy Logan Story on Easter Monday wascomprehensive and moving. A 65-year career that spanned panto todrama and even the inimitable recording Loganberry Pie was renderedbeautifully. Logan reading extracts from his autobiography wasaugmented with a staggering number of interviews with family andprofessional pals. They even pulled off a coup with a rare interviewwith Stanley Baxter praising the 'honourable man'. Surely a rareattribute in such a notorious business. The sound of Logan beltingout a rousing rendition of I Love a Lassie with the audienceclapping along was the best memory of all.

Memories of another kind were stoked when 1970s teen idol DonnyOsmond guested on Fred MacAulay's show. Ladies of a certain age mayrecall misspent doe-eyed hours slavering over the toothy Mormon manymoons ago. Now the Puppy Love pin-up is back, promoting upcomingconcerts. In bright-eyed, anarchic mood, Donny (with a y not an ie,he clarified) impersonated his understanding of a Scottish accent.

NOTHING TO DO BUT READ IDEAS TO KEEP KIDS IN A LITERARY FRAME OF MIND - The Buffalo News (Buffalo, NY)

IN HIS poem 'Summer Song' John Ciardi asks, 'Guess if summerlasts too long?' Many parents would answer yes after hearing theirchildren whine, 'I'm bored, there's nothing to do.'

Finding ways to keep kids happy is not always easy. One of thebest ways is to channel their energy into reading. How nice that itrequires no electrical outlet, can be done at any time, any place,and provides many happy accidents of discovery.

Planning before school ends may give students a chance toborrow books from their school library.

Encourage kids to form a Neighborhood Summer Reading Club wherebooks can be discussed, recommended and exchanged. Research hasshown that reading becomes more meaningful for kids when they cantalk about what they've read, especially to an interested adult. Soif a parent could be involved in some of these meetings, all thebetter.

A pajama party where everyone reads a part of his/her favoritebook would be fun. Sunny-day meetings under a shade tree orrainy-day basement meetings add variety. Choose a child who likesto organize as the president. The vice president could keep trackof meeting times and places. The secretary could keep notes onbooks exchanged and hours when the public library is open. Theseactivities would provide structure to the days and weeks, as wellas something to look forward to.

A colorful folder for each member with pad and pencil enclosedwould be the only supplies needed. To encourage continuity, aparent might consider getting T-shirts printed with the club'sname. A party at summer's end could include skits of favorite booksor characters. Younger brothers and sisters could be invited andinspired. Admission could be a hand-made bookmark to be exchangedat party's end. Imagination would be rewarded and children woulddiscover that reading can be fun!

What to read? The books waiting for children provide an endlessvariety of choices. As a member of the 1992 Newbery MedalCommittee, I was privileged to judge many outstanding books forchildren published during 1991. The Gold Medal winner -- for themost distinguished contribution to American literature for children-- was 'Shiloh' by Phyllis Reynolds Naylor (ages 8 and up). This ismore than a book about an 11-year-old boy and his dog, Appalachia.The theme also skillfully addresses the concepts of honesty andcommitment.

Two honor books also were chosen. The first is 'Nothing But theTruth' (ages 12 and up), a documentary novel by Avi that is apowerful, realistic story dealing with misconceptions, rumor andgossip. The other honor book -- 'The Wright Brothers: How TheyInvented the Airplane' by Russell Freedman (ages 10 and up) -- is avery personal biography with original photos of Wilbur and OrvilleWright.

So many other new books with timely themes of homelessness, thedangers of drugs, prejudice and environmental issues provideinsights into the real world.

Yesterday's world is presented, even for the youngest, asCharles Lindbergh flies off the pages of 'Flight' (ages 5 and up).Titles like 'The Remarkable Voyages of Captain Cook' (11 and up),'Prairie Visions' (10 and up) and 'Now Is Your Time' (12 and up),winner of the Coretta Scott King Award, make history come alive.

Other outstanding historical fiction can be found in the CivilWar story 'Jayhawker' (11 and up) and in Katherine Paterson'smasterful tale of 'Lyddie' (12 and up), about a factory worker inMassachusetts in the 1840s. A child can go along on ChristopherColumbus' journey by sharing in 'Pedro's Journal' (8 and up), thediary of a young cabin boy aboard the Santa Maria.

The entertaining fantasy 'Jeremy Thatcher, Dragon Hatcher' (8and up) will bring laughter and maybe tears to readers. 'Wanted . .. Mud Blossom' (8 and up) is a hilarious dog story, and for sportsfans ages 8 and older, there is 'Soccer Shock' and 'Finding BuckMcHenry' (baseball).

The delicious sights and sounds of poetry are found in 'Pish,Posh, Said Hieronymus Bosch' by Nancy Willard, with fantasticillustrations by the Dillons (all ages), and 'In for Winter, Outfor Spring' by Arnold Adoff, illustrated by Jerry Pinkney, whichcelebrates family life throughout the cycle of seasons (recommendedfor children 4 to 8).

These books should be gobbled up, chewed and digested toprovide the energy for enjoying a whole summer with no time towhine, 'There's nothing to do!'

Other outstanding new books:

AGES 5 AND UP:

'D Is for Dolphin' by Cami Berg

'Night Tree' by Eve Bunting

'Living With Dinosaurs' by Patricia Lauber

'Rats on the Roof' by James Marshall

'The Discovery of the Americas' by Betsy and Guilio Maestro

Vanishing Culture Series -- 'Himalaya,' 'Sahara' by Jan Reynolds

'Appalachia, the Voices of Sleeping Birds' by Cynthia Rylant

'Larger Than Life: The Adventures of American Legendary Heroes'by Robert San Souci

'The Legend of William Tell' by Terry Small

'Go Fish' by Mary Stolz

'Hark! A Christmas Sampler' by Jane Yolen

POETRY:

'Winter Pennies' by N.M.Bodecker

'The Kite That Braved Old Orchard Beach' by X.J. Kennedy

'I'm Going to Pet a Worm Today' by Constance Levy

AGES 10 AND UP:

'Wings' by Bill Britain

'Oren Bell' by Barbara Hood Burgess

'Strider' by Beverly Cleary

'Chingis Khan' by Demi

'Hunt for the Last Cat' by Justin Denzel

'Animal Architecture' by Jennifer Owings Dewey

'Bully for You, Teddy Roosevelt' by Jean Fritz

'Pueblo Storyteller' by Hoyt-Goldsmith

'Double Trouble Squared' by Kathryn Lasky

'Summer of Fire' by Patricia Lauber

'Amazon' by Peter Lourie

'Journey' by Patricia Mac-Lachlan

'The Great Eggspectations of Lila Fenwick' by Kate McMullen

'Soccer Shock' by Donna J. Napoli

'Wild Voices' by Drew Nelson

'American Tall Tales' by Mary Pope Osborne

'The Cookcamp' by Gary Paulsen

'Tails of the Bronx' by Jill Pinkwater

'Grandpa's Mountain' by Carolyn Reeder

'Children of the Fire' by Harriet Gillem Robinet

'The Gift of the Girl Who Couldn't Hear' by Susan Shreve

'Finding Buck McHenry' by Alfred Slote

'Thrashin' Time' by David Weitzman

'George Washington's Socks' by Elvira Woodruff

'Searching for Dragons' by Patricia C. Wrede

'The Mozart Season' by Virginia Euwer Wolff

'The Star Fisher' by Laurence Yep

'Wizard's Hall' by Jane Yolen

'The Fortuneteller in 5B' by Jane Breskin Zalben

YOUNG ADULT:

'Young Joan' by Barbara Dana

'The Borning Room' by Paul Fleischman

'The Truth About Unicorns' by James Giblin

'The Painter's Eye: Learning to Look at Contemporary AmericanArt' by Sandra Jordan

'I Am Regina' by Sally Keehn

'Goldclimbers' by Nancy Luenn

'The Striped Ships' by Eloise McGraw

'Song of the Gargoyle' by Zilpha Snyder

'Year of the Impossible Goodbyes' by Nyul Choi Sook

'The Island and the Ring' by Laura C. Stevenson

'The Weirdo' by Theodore Taylor

An innovative teacher turns kids into writers; Nancy Barile's flair for teaching has captured her students' attention - and just earned her an award from the College Board.(FEATURES)(CURRENTS) - The Christian Science Monitor

Byline: Stacy A. Teicher Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor

REVERE, MASS. -- Most of the hallways in Revere High School are lined with skinny, sherbet-orange lockers. But outside Nancy Barile's classroom, her sophomore lit students have placed a stately row of poster-board gravestones, complete with epitaphs, for the characters who died in 'Hamlet.'

Ms. Barile knows how to hook the CSI generation. But it's her flair for teaching them to write that earned her a recent award from the College Board.

On this particular morning, the teens in her 'Mysteries' elective class focus intensely as they draft their own suspense stories. Barile has already led them through the criteria she'll be looking for, and the priority today is imagery - part of 'Standard 15' measured on statewide tests.

'What's imagery? Language that appeals to your senses,' Barile says as she writes on the whiteboard. 'What does it smell like out in the woods? Is there a smell of decay?' she suggests with a mischievous grin.

'Out of all my classes, this is the most exciting - she captures your attention while she's teaching,' says senior Phillip Longo, who first encountered her in an after-school class for students who had failed English.

Loved as she is for handing out creative assignments, never 'busywork,' her students also give Barile credit for insisting they put their commas in the right place.

'She helps everyone with their writing so much,' says Autumn Zandt, a senior in Barile's advanced-placement course. 'It's been really nice to have someone focusing on [grammar] before we go away to college.'

Teaching in Revere, Mass., for 11 years, Barile has built up a reputation - as a feminist with a voice that more than fills a room; as a stalwart supporter of the school's sports teams, plays, and community-service activities; and as a mentor to students and fellow teachers. It all feeds into her ability to turn kids into writers, which garnered her one of this year's six Bob Costas Grants for the Teaching of Writing from the College Board, a national nonprofit association in New York.

'When students are able to improve upon their writing skills, it builds a kind of confidence that translates into other academic areas,' says Sandra Riley, a College Board spokeswoman. With colleges and employers complaining that high school grads too often require remedial writing lessons, the $2,000 awards are designed to highlight effective practices and support teachers' extracurricular projects.

Barile applied for the grant to restart Revere High's literary magazine, Crossroads. For the past three years, it's been the victim of budget cuts, leaving no outlet for the poems, short stories, and foreign-language pieces that Barile used to publish every year.

Her friend, history teacher Bill O'Brien, says the literary magazine attracts 'kids you wouldn't expect.... A lot of them use writing as an outlet, and she can kind of channel that.'

Revere, just north of Boston, is a gateway for immigrants and a place where many families have long relied on blue-collar jobs. Aiming for college isn't something all of the school's 1,400 students do automatically. But Barile tries to encourage anything that might give them a feeling of success in school. Rather than set the literary magazine up as a competition, 'as long as it's not inappropriate, I publish everything,' she says.

Brittany Deptula, a senior in Barile's Advanced Placement (AP) class, says she's excited about contributing lyrical poetry to the magazine. She also started writing for the local newspaper after Barile suggested it, and now hopes to study journalism. 'She's just one of those teachers that you can have, like, kind of a more personal relationship with,' Brittany says.

Melyssia Mansur, a sophomore, says she's writing her own biography because of Barile's encouragement. And Brian Dudley, a senior in her AP class, says he was astounded to find himself sitting around at lunch with classmates discussing 'The Awakening,' by Kate Chopin, a novel about a young woman that was published in 1899 and repopularized in the 1970s.

'I was like, 'I've never done this before!' But she made us want to talk about the book and seriously think about it.... It made us all feel kind of like, 'Oh wow, we're actually learning something,'' Brian says.

Barile had always wanted to be a teacher, but she became a paralegal instead, partly to please her father, she says. When she went to night school to change careers, her student-teaching brought her to Revere. A year later, after working with high school dropouts, a position opened up and she grabbed it.

'I'm always thinking about, 'How can I make this more interesting for the kids?' ' she says. Then she channels that interest into skills: demanding they include literary evidence, such as direct quotes, to back up their essays, for instance.

Mr. O'Brien says the students respect Barile because they know she holds them to high standards. She fills their papers with comments and has them redo their work if it's not good enough.

'This is a community where some people will have lower expectations,' he says, but Barile tries to connect with everyone, whether it's a pregnant teen or a gang member. 'A lot of kids rise to that when they see, 'Oh, she's not going to let me put my head down in class.... She knows I'm better than this.' '

'I'm still trying to save the world,' Barile says with a tired smile and the acknowledgment that it sometimes wears her down.

That's partly why she calls her recent award 'a career highlight' and 'the gift that keeps on giving.' At the ceremony, she was amazed to see 1,000 people give her a standing ovation. She even gets congratulated in the grocery store.

But for now, it's just another day to cruise around the classroom, keeping her kids writing as she nudges and praises them.

'Excellent. You've got great stuff there,' she says after reading over a boy's shoulder. 'Keep your verb tense the same,' she calls out to the class. And then, pausing over another story in progress, she exclaims with genuine delight: 'Slurped! Slurped is a great onomatopoeia!'

From near-dropout to college-bound

For Merzudin Ibric, grades 1 to 3 were a casualty of war in Bosnia. Grades 11 and 12 would have gone up in smoke, too, if not for the intervention of English teacher Nancy Barile.

An immigrant to the United States at age 12, Merzudin's English was fluent by the time he reached Ms. Barile's class as a sophomore at Revere High School. All too often, he had his head down on his desk, but even then he'd manage to toss out some sophisticated comments that gave his teacher glimmers of hope.

'Finally, I pulled him aside, and I was like, 'Look. What is your deal?' ' Barile says. He confided that he planned to drop out and get a job as soon as he turned 16.

'She told me that she would not let me drop out ... because she thought I was smart, and she wanted me to graduate, and she told me that I was going to go to college,' he says in a phone interview.

Barile knew he was a fast runner, so she paired up with the track coach to persuade Merzudin to pull his grades up in the three classes he was failing so he could compete. He went on to become a state and regional champion.

Currently on scholarship for a postgraduate year at Phillips Academy in nearby Andover, he'll attend Wheaton College in Norton, Mass., next fall. 'I'm glad that I listened,' Merzudin says.

Barile also urged him to write a book about his experiences as a child in Bosnia and his transition here. He listened to that, too. Now his teachers at Andover are helping him try to get it published.

'She's just an amazing person, and I'm ever thankful to her for helping me out,' he says of the woman who befriended his whole family. 'If I need advice on something, she's always there; she does not hesitate at all.'

Yearning for learning? To turn kids on to reading and school, parents may have to use creativity - over and over again.(VARIETY) - Star Tribune (Minneapolis, MN)

Byline: Norman Draper; Staff Writer

RSEC: +

You thought you were a nurturing, caring parent.

You read to your children from the time they were infants. Vacation trips became lessons in the rudiments of history and geography. You did all those things the experts said you should do to foster learning.

But look what happened. Homework assignments aren't getting turned in, and your kids are tuning out in the classroom. Try to strike up a conversation about the American Revolution, and it somehow gets twisted into a monologue about Corey Koskie's fielding or the Backstreet Boys' singing.

Where did you go wrong?

Probably nowhere.

Rearing a good learner is no science, and barely even an art. The family genes can either thwart your best intentions or aid them, and there's nothing you can do about that. And the so-called experts in the field can only take you so far: Read to your children, limit the use of electronics, get involved in their schooling.

Beyond that, your home is the laboratory, and you have to experiment.

'I find myself going through my whole bag of tricks, trying to find out what will work this time,' said Linda Spee, president of the Minnesota PTA and the mother of a 15-year-old boy and a 12-year-old girl. 'I think you go through cycles and they don't work, and you try them again and they do, and try them again and they don't work.'

'There's no magic wand,' said Lisa Silmser, who teaches seventh-grade English at Anoka's Sandburg Middle School. 'If there was, you could pick it up at Wal-Mart.'

Some things to try

What all of this means is that there are plenty of ideas that might work in your case, and they certainly are worth a try. For example:

- Nothing beats silence for creating a suitable homework environment, said Marika Ginsburg-Block, an assistant professor of educational psychology at the University of Minnesota. Turn off the TV and stereo and stay off the phone.

- Offer reasonable choices to your child, such as the best time to work, and the most interesting media to explore (the encyclopedia or the Internet, for instance).

- If a particular homework problem is frustrating to your child, urge him to move on to others that are easier. When that vexing problem can no longer be ignored, set a timer for five minutes; there can be no calls to adults for help until the time is up.

- Try to judge whether the material your child is dealing with is too tough or too easy, which can squelch any interest in doing it.

- Try to capitalize on their interests.

Kate Weidenbach, a third-grade teacher at Minneapolis' Tuttle Elementary School, appealed to her son's passion, baseball, when the fifth-grader was assigned to write a poem, ordinarily an odious task to a kid who ate and breathed sports.

'I said, `Stop thinking about poetry; just tell me what you feel like when you are playing,' ' Weidenbach said.

'He told me some of those things, and I said, `Tell me every color you see when you're playing baseball, and when you breathe in, waiting for that first ball, what's that feeling?' When he was done, he produced some of the most beautiful poetry about how he felt when he was playing baseball... . It was gorgeous.'

A world of learning

Kit Wilhite, director of youth and family programs for the Science Museum of Minnesota, likes to point out that the world around us is one huge learning opportunity. There's science in the thunderstorm bearing down on your neighborhood, in the flowers growing in your garden, in the birds that frequent your feeder. Math comes in when measuring is done for cooking and when figuring out what to do with accumulated allowance money. You might know this already, but Wilhite's key point is this: Don't make a chore of these learning events; weave them into the fabric of daily life. That results in less skepticism and gives those teachable moments some staying power.

Getting other kids involved helps, too. If a neighbor child starts rattling off state capitals, your own kids might want to get into the act. And sometimes knowledge is more palatable when it doesn't come from on high.

'Well, of course Dad knows the state capitals; come on,' Ginsburg-Block said. 'But if it's someone closer in age, well, `Look, she knows state capitals!' That can be very helpful in learning.'

You're the parent

Sometimes it's all right to lay down the law.

'One of the things parents might have lost in the shuffle is their right to parent,' said Kathleen Brown, principal of Holy Family Catholic High School in Victoria. 'I don't need to be a friend to my child... . So yeah, `Today what we're doing is sitting here and reading, and I'm the parent,' and yeah, maybe it's because I said so.'

Talking over current events can work, especially if it strikes close to home. Spee has no trouble engaging her children in conversation over the news of the home school district - Rochester - especially with teacher layoffs and big cuts in store this school year.

Some educators dislike the notion of awards or privileges for homework or reading assignments done well. But Marianne Norris, Minneapolis schools executive director of teacher and instructional services, thinks there's a place for making deals, or 'contracts,' with your kids.

'Let's say the child enjoys cars,' she said. 'Maybe the parent will say, `There's an auto show coming up... . Let's make a chart and we'll track how much reading you do,' and if the child reads 30 hours by the time of the auto show, they'll go together.' Norris warns of contracts that are too vague and long-term; they can easily be ignored or forgotten.

At the library

On a day shortly before school started, some real experts gathered at Richfield's Augsburg Park public library. Eight-year-old Alex Putnam was exploring the world of Harry Potter. The books are a challenge, but Alex decided to tackle them because 'other people told me it was fun.' How would he advise parents who want their kids to read more? Parents should get their kids interested in books that have television counterparts.

'Like Rugrats,' he said.

Most of the Zilka family - four girls, two boys and mother Ann - were there availing themselves of everything from science fiction, to history, to Nancy Drew mysteries. The Zilka kids have always been read to by their parents, and they read to each other. Fourteen-year-old Katherine, the oldest, noted that her mom often livens up her readings to the family by using different voices for the characters.

'That really kept our imagination going,' she said. Younger sisters Rose, 8, and Abby, 10, found books on tape to be a good entry point to reading.

Katherine had another tip for holding an audience. 'I'd say start reading a book, then leave it at a climax, then have them finish it.'

Nearby, 8-year-old Katelyn Erickson also offered a bit of advice.

'If it's too hard for them, maybe they should pick out an easier book,' she said.

There's some consolation amid the mix of failures and successes: You have plenty of company.

Spee said she often commiserates with other parents who are disappointed that their learning strategems haven't worked.

'We share our frustrations and ideas and success, and then share our frustrations again,' she said. 'Sometimes, as a parent, it's nice to know that I'm not the only one with the same frustrations, and that maybe I didn't do such a bad job after all.'

- Norman Draper is at ndraper@startribune.com.

For eager readers ...

Kids at the Augsburg Park Library in Richfield had tips for parents:

- Read to your kids

- Use different voices for the characters

- Find books that correspond to TV shows

- Stop reading aloud right before a dramatic ending (to inspire kids to finish the story on their own.)

Inspiring your kids

Here are some resources cited by parents and educators as good jump starts to learning for the reluctant child and the frustrated parent.

Books

- 'How to Talk So Kids Can Learn: At Home and in School' by Adele Faber and Elaine Mazlish; Simon and Schuster.

- 'The School-Savvy Parent: 365 Insider Tips to Help You Help Your Child' by Rosemarie Clark, Donna Hawkins, Beth Vachon and Marjorie Lisovskis; Free Spirit Publishing.

- 'The School Book: Everything Parents Must Know About Their Child's Education From Preschool Through Eighth Grade' by Mary Susan Miller; St. Martin's Press.

TV cable channels

- The Discovery Channel

- Animal Planet

- The History Channel

Online

- The Thinking Fountain, the Science Museum of Minnesota's Web site for kids: http://www.smm.org/sln.

- The Learning Network's Parent Channel: http://www.Familyeducation.com.

- Kid Info: http://www.kidinfo.com.

Where kids, authors can 'connect' - The Philadelphia Tribune

McDaniel, Eleanor H.
Philadelphia Tribune, The
01-30-2001
Where kids, authors can `connect'

Children of all ages may meet some of their favorite authors and
illustrators at the ninth annual African-American Children's Book Fair,
Saturday, Feb. 3, at the Winnet Student Life Building at the Community
College of Philadelphia, 17th and Spring Garden streets, from 1-3 p.m.

Many noted creators of African-American children's literature are
volunteering their time to the effort as a way to connect with their young
readers. They feel that it is important for African-American children to
meet them and hear them read from their works. They hope they will become
role models in the same way that entertainers and sports figures are.

The book fair kicks off Black History Month by promoting a sense of
cultural pride through literature. Education experts agree on the
importance of children developing a love of reading.

Armed with this knowledge, Vanesse J. Lloyd- Sgambati, president and
founder of Literary, an agency that specializes in literary ventures,
decided nine years ago to put the publishers, writers, illustrators and
consumers of African-American books together.

'We make sure we have best-selling authors who would normally charge to go
into schools, and we make sure every child walks out of that room with
something book-related,' she said.

WCAU-TV (Channel 10) has donated a book-giveaway to the first 300 children
who attend. There will also be free posters, bookmarks, catalogs and other
book-related items available.

Lloyd-Sgambati is concerned that the market for African-American children's
books is 'an endangered species.' As with any business, the bottom line is
money, and the sales of these publications are way down. Consumers complain
that children's books, especially the hardcover versions, are too costly.
But Lloyd-Sgambati counters, 'How many children's books can you buy for the
price of one video game?'

She has learned of an added benefit of reading for Black children. It has
been discovered that there's a correlation between reading and good health,
she says.

'Studies have shown that African-American children who read are more likely
to make responsible health choices.' The Literary has adopted the slogan,
'Read, It's Good for Your Health.'

All the literary participants in the book fair agree that books written
expressly for African-American children help them develop a sense of
cultural pride through the positive portrayal of African-Americans. And
books with universal themes take on a more relevant meaning when the images
are Black.

'Grandma's Purple Flowers,' written and illustrated by AdJoa J. Burrowes,
tackles a difficult theme: the death of a beloved relative. The book tells
the story of the special relationship between a grandmother and her
granddaughter and the subsequent death of the grandmother. The subject is
handled with great sensitivity.

Burrowes firmly believes in the necessity of reading to children. 'It's
important for kids to be exposed to books as early as possible to instill
in them a love for reading. I don't think that's hard for parents to do,
because there're basic things that they can do like making sure that
there's reading material in the home and that the child can see the adults
reading. Time should be set aside to snuggle up with your child to read on
a consistent basis.'

Another book, 'Shades of Black,' deals with an issue common to the
African-American community: skin color. Husbandand-wife team Sandra and
Myles Pinkney have created a book that beautifully shows and discusses the
rainbow of skin colors found in the Black race through photos of children
by Myles and poems by Sandra. The book has been nominated for an NAACP
Image Award. The winners will be announced in March.

Myles explained their reasons for writing the book: 'We had issues of skin
color when we were young. Me for being teased for being light-skinned. In
middle school, it was the dark-skinned kids who teased me. I thought they'd
be the ones who'd accept me, [not the whites,] and they were the ones who
rejected me.'

His wife, Sandra, also experienced ugly incidents of racism in school. 'I
grew up not liking myself,' she says. 'I thought Black was not the color to
be. But I wanted to teach children self-esteem [with our book]. Black is
beautiful. Yes,' she adds, 'we do come in all skin tones and we're all
special.' Right now, the couple is working with their youngest child, who
is troubled by the inconsistency of skin tones in their family. They
decided that a book was a way to explain the differences in skin tones to
him and to other children. And, equally important, it will teach respect
for each individual's color.

The Pinkneys are currently working on 'Colors,' a book that addresses the
variety of colors of the peoples of the world.

Award-winning illustrator Neneka Bennett will read from 'Visions of
Beauty,' written by Kathryn Lasky, with pictures by Bennett. It's the story
of Madame C. J. Walker.

Bennett discusses her decision to volunteer her time at the book fair. 'I'd
like a chance to talk to people about my book and how I did it. Being an
illustrator, I tend to spend a lot of time in my house working on my
artwork. I don't get a chance to spend time with children, as much as I'd
like to. So this is a chance to touch base with them.'

The recipient of two Coretta Scott King Awards for Illustration, Bryan
Collier, feels 'blessed' to get out and share his talents with others. His
books, 'These Hands,' by Hope Lynn Price, 'Freedom River,' by Doreen
Rappaport and 'Uptown,' written and illustrated by Collier, will be
available at the book fair.

Collier recently entered the world of illustration after 18 years as a fine
artist. He says, 'I love it. Illustration has opened up a whole new avenue
in terms of my approach and expression and how to tell a story.' He feels
that creating art for children is like a ministry for him. 'It's opening
their hearts and minds to the world around us.' Examples of Collier's art
can be seen on www.bryancollier.com.

Other authors and illustrators scheduled to appear at the book fair are
Charles Blockson, A. Roxie Graves, Jabri Asmin, Shakira, Charles Smith,
Deborah Buchanan and E. B. Lewis.

The book fair is free and open to the public. Books will be of special
interest to children of pre-school age through young adulthood, parents,
teachers and school librarians. For information about the event, contact
the Literary at 215-877-2012.

Article copyright Philadelphia Tribune Company, Inc.

Article copyright Philadelphia Tribune Company, Inc.
V.117

Kids Help With Magazine for Military Youth - AP Online

WATERTOWN, N.Y. - Lee Allison was a little nervous during his first assignment. But in the military, he knew, you complete your mission.

'I stuttered a few times, but he was nice. He answered all my questions,' said 12-year-old Lee, recalling his interview with Brett Helquist, the illustrator for the children's books, 'A Series of Unfortunate Events.'

The interview was for the first issue of 'Military Brats,' a magazine for military youth written mostly by sons and daughters of soldiers and published by a military mom at the U.S. Army's Fort Drum in upstate New York.

The first 250,000 copies of Military Brats was distributed free through 258 commissaries worldwide and began disappearing almost immediately, said Robert Hansgen, a spokesman for the U.S. Defense Commissary Agency.

'That's a sure sign that it filled a need that people had,' said Janice Witte, director of the U.S. Department of Defense's Office of Children and Youth.

There are more than 692,000 children ages 6 to 18 classified as military youth, Witte said.

'There are lots of publications out there for military personnel over age 18, but there isn't really anything that's really connected to the military for our youth,' she said.

Misty Burris also noticed the void. So while she and her husband, now retired Army Staff Sgt. Sean Burris, drove from California to Fort Drum three years ago, she wrote out a detailed business plan for a military youth magazine.

'We hear all these stories about how military morale is down in these difficult times. I thought the way to fix that is to start with the kids,' said Burris, 33, who formed Littlefoot Publishing, Inc. to produce the magazine.

The only other attempt to produce a military youth magazine was distributed to just a few bases in the 1990s, Burris said.

Keenly aware of military protocol, Burris traveled to the Pentagon for support. The Pentagon provided her with a ready-made distribution network - the commissary system, which serves families in all branches of the military, living on or off U.S. installations.

The magazine's first 100-page issue came out in June. The next is scheduled for September. Publishing an issue costs about $300,000, which the company is raising through advertising and corporate grants.

Each issue will highlight a dozen selected military bases with photos and a travelogue-type article written by the post's public affairs office.

The stories, poems, columns and other regular features are produced by the magazine's staff of 12 writers, ages 11 to 17. Several have fathers due home in the coming weeks from Afghanistan and Iraq.

Others, like Lee Allison, don't have a parent in the military but feel strongly connected because of the Army's large local presence. In the Indian River School District, where Lee is a seventh-grader, 80 percent of the students have a parent at Fort Drum.

Among the magazine's fixtures will be an advice column and Allison's book review column. Another writer reviews electronic games and gadgetry. There's even a style section.

Burris' 14-year-old son, Sean, is a sports columnist. For the first issue, he interviewed Tom Felton - Harry Potter's arch nemesis Draco Malfoy - during the teen actor's stop in northern New York to fish in the St. Lawrence River. For the next issue, he's writing about geocaching, a kind of high-tech treasure hunt.

'I think other kids will want to read our magazine because they know it's going to be about something kids are interested in, and in it's going to be written in a way that they'll find interesting,' said Sean, whose two siblings are also on staff.

His mother said the magazine is not looking to take on controversial subjects.

'It's hard enough being a military brat,' she said. 'We want to tell them positive stories. We want to give them useful information. To let them know that there are others sharing their experiences, that they're not alone.'

---

On the Net:

Run, kids, run.(Daily Break) - The Virginian-Pilot (Norfolk, VA)

week 6 challenge

This week see if you can do up to 18 minutes of running in a workout. If you haven't run that far already, try switching off walking three minutes and running two minutes until you have 18 minutes of running. Do this for two of your workouts. For the third, do a 35-minute walk.

Remember, that's just a goal. If you're been running already, you might be able to do more; if not, you might need to do less. Don't worry. You have plenty of time to get in shape - the rest of your life.

If you get out of breath, sloowwwwwwww down. If you can talk and run at the same time, that's probably a good pace - and it's always OK to walk. Have fun.

tips

Can you believe it? We're half-way through the program. If you want to sign up for the first big race after we're done - the Children's Hospital of The King's Daughters Run/Walk for the Kids on June 17 - now's a good time. After May 8 , the registration fees go up. Right now it's $12 for kids and $25 for adults. The event includes a 1-mile run, a 10K and a 5K (3.1 miles) - which is what many of you have been training for.

And, remember, it's not too late to download a children's 'marathon' chart and work toward a marathon medal by running the mile on June 17. Visit runwalkforthekids.org .

expert advice

Crystal Kearney

Age 12

School Salem Middle in Virginia Beach

What's your favorite sport? Basketball, because I like to run and sometimes I like to play against my sister and try and do tricks.

Why do you like to exercise? I just like to be outside. I don't like to sit down. I'm fidgety. It makes me feel more energized.

Advice for kids just starting out exercising Stop freaking out about it because it's really not that big a deal. Don't push yourself if it hurts. You think it's supposed to hurt, but it's not really.

Favorite food Pasta salad

Least favorite food Sweet potatoes. They make my stomach hurt.

Favorite subject English, because I like to write poems and songs.

Hero Lyfe - he writes songs. He's creative, and he writes about life. I like to write about life and the difficulties and stuff.

reach us

Questions? Tips? Would you like a Run, Kids, Run bumper sticker? E-mail runkidsrun@pilotonline.com or call (757) 446-2552.

CAPTION(S):

'THEY WERE SUCH HAPPY KIDS' - The Columbian (Vancouver, WA)

One woman spoke for so many others, voice choked with sobs: 'Idon't have words. We love you.'

She spoke at the funeral for 8-year-old Tyson Schram and hissister, 7-year-old Jasmine Warren, who died after being struck by acar Saturday five blocks from home.

More than 300 people turned out for the Thursday service at FirstUnited Methodist Church in Vancouver. The crowd included thechildren's mother, Pam Warren, each child's father, more than 30other family members, friends, neighbors, classmates and strangers.

The Rev. Willie F. Pride refused to call it a funeral service,choosing instead the phrase 'home-going celebration.' Pride overseesEverlasting Missionary Baptist Church in Rosemere, where bothchildren attended vacation Bible school last year.

Two white coffins stood at the front of the sanctuary, drapedwith flowers. A stuffed pink bunny rested on the altar steps. Abouquet of blue balloons rose behind that.

The Rev. James Hobbs, assisting Pride in Thursday's service,described the children this way: 'Two roses that God has calledhome. It is not goodbye, but until we see you on heaven's side.'

Seven-tenths of a mile from First Methodist, east down 33rdStreet and then north on P Street, a roadside memorial marks thespot where Tyson and Jasmine were struck at 4:50 p.m. Saturday by apassing vehicle.

Tyson died at the scene. Jasmine died later at a Portlandhospital. The two had been heading home from a trip to buy treats ata neighborhood market.

At the roadside memorial earlier this week, eight balloons waftedin the breeze, anchored within a menagerie of stuffed animals and asmall forest of flowers gathering dew.

Twenty-seven candles lined the curb, one tucked into a Bumble Beetuna can, others flickering faintly after hours of slow burning.

There were photos, notes and poems. A hand-drawn message in child-sized scrawl read, 'I miss you guys.'

'Watch over Jasmine'

Wednesday evening, Pam Warren spent several hours sitting next toher children's coffins at Evergreen Staples Funeral Chapel inMinnehaha.

'She has some more words to say to them,' said her boyfriend,Troy Thompson.

Later, Warren arrived home to a cramped apartment in Rosemere.Surrounded by a dozen family members, including her two youngestchildren, Destiny and Malachi, Warren looked shell-shocked, empty.

She found a sliver of comfort in the fact that Jasmine will beburied with her favorite Mickey Mouse blanket, a newborn giftsoftened by years of use.

'They were happy kids, just happy kids, such happy kids,' Warrensaid. 'Other kids loved to be around them.'

They played freeze tag and slip-and-slide in the summer, amid agaggle of neighborhood kids who shared Popsicles and laughter.

Tyson, she said, was athletic, artistic, protective of his littlesister. He also was eager to grow up.

'He couldn't wait to get a job and start making money,' Warrensaid, adding that the boy already was a 'little businessman,'selling people grocery coupons.

Jasmine danced and laughed, leaped and spun like a ballerina. Shehad a bright smile, and classmates described her as soft-spoken, agood listener, always a friend.

'They were very affectionate and loving,' she said.

A classmate, second-grader Jordan Harris, this week wrote a noteto the two children, visualizing them playing together in heaven:'Tyson, please watch over Jasmine so that she doesn't fall in theclouds.'

Warren looked away as the words were read aloud Wednesday nightin her living room. Eyes red-rimmed, she didn't speak for almost aminute.

'I forgot to tell you,' she said, voice flat. 'Jasmine was themost beautiful child in the world.'

Uncertain cause

Vancouver police continue to investigate the accident.

Tamara Cashdollar, 30, was driving south in the 3400 block of PStreet, toward her nearby home, when for undetermined reasons hersport-utility vehicle swerved and struck the two children. Two orthree other children on the roadside police aren't yet certain ofthe number were uninjured.

Some witnesses say Jasmine and Tyson were riding together on asingle bike. Others say Jasmine was on the bike, and Tyson waswalking behind.

Police say Cashdollar is in shock after the accident and hasn'tbeen able to provide a detailed account. They plan to interview heragain, perhaps next week.

Cashdollar and her 5-year-old son were treated for minor injuriesafter the accident. Her phone has been disconnected, and no oneappeared to be at home this week at the Cashdollar residence.

'Drive safely'

Half a mile from Evergreen Staples Funeral Chapel, where PamWarren sat vigil Wednesday evening beside her children's coffins,there is another roadside memorial, visible to all who pass.

There, at St. James and Arnold roads, an elaborate tribute forJosh D. Raley stands as a reminder of enduring love and grief.Raley, 14, died after the car in which he was riding struck a treeon July 3, 1999, at that corner.

More than two years later, shiny red hearts, Christmas ornamentsand other decorations mark the passing of holidays.

A headstone bears the words 'Live, love and laugh in memory ofJoshua Devin Raley.'

Other words are carved into another stone: 'If tears could builda stairway and memories a lane, I'd walk right up to heaven andbring you home again.'

Beyond that, a sign stands at the roadside: 'Drive safely inmemory of Josh D. Raley.'

And now in memory of Tyson and Jasmine, too.

Donations needed:

KIDS' EXPRESSIONS - Volta Voices

Melissa Mark

Melissa Mark, 8, will be entering the third grade at the Underwood Elementary School in Newton, Mass., this fall. Melissa has a severe to profound hearing loss. Melissa has learned to speak and listen with the help of her digital hearing aids. As she described in her second grade essay, Melissa enjoys many activities and has not let her hearing loss deter her.

My name is Melissa Haley Mark. I was born on April 9, 1997. I was a happy baby. I liked to play games with my mom and dad. I was a good sleeper. I loved my dog Jasper. I like to watch my two brothers, Ian and Zachary, play.

I live with my mom, dad, two brothers and my baby sister, Allison. My pets are my dog, Winston, and my cat Zelda. I like going to school. I am in second grade and I love writing.

My favorite activity is drawing. My favorite sports are soccer, basketball and football. My heroes are lan and Zachary, mom and dad, and Sarah because I love them and they are my family.

Brianne Oricchio

My name is Brianne Oricchio, and I am 10 years old. I wrote a poem called 'Sparkplug' about my brother T.J.

T.J. is my little bro

In hockey he is a skating pro

On the ice, he is never scared

He is special because he is hearing impaired

T.J. is extremely athletic

He says shopping at the mall is quite pathetic

When he is eating we call him 'The Great White,'

Watch out for your fingers, he may bite!

T.J. wears his FM at school,

All the other kids think it is cool,

His sister helps him if he has trouble,

She is always there, on the double.

Mom and Dad have helped him grow,

They've taught him what he ought to know,

T.J. is very bright,

I love my brother with all my might!

Do you have a poem, short story or piece of artwork that you would like to submit to Kids' Expressions?

Please e-mail editor@agbell.org.

POET LAUREATE

LAKE FOREST -- He was in the 'dumb' class in eighth grade.Unathletic, unpopular, told by family that he'd never amount to anything, Robert Pinsky was a guy Long Branch, N.J., chalked-up as forgettable.

But Pinsky had a secret: Words.

He loved words.

The way they sounded in his head.

The way they sounded in his throat and through his lips.

As long as he could remember, he said, he thought about the sounds of words and phrases.

He loved language so much, in fact, that language loved him back.

Today, the nation's 39th Poet Laureate does what he loves to do and is paid handsomely -- in notoriety and money -- to do it.

When he's not teaching graduate writing at Boston University, Pinsky is talking up the joy of verse, working at increasing public awareness of poetry, from stuffy $500-a-plate fund-raisers to schools and prisons.

Pinsky, 57, was at Lake Forest College Monday, doing what poet laureates earn $35,000 a year doing.

He read from his works, talked about being a poet and, in general, captivated an auditorium full of both old and young admirers -- a few who were probably told by their creative writing teachers to show up or else.

Though Pinsky looks the part of the dark, brooding poet -- one can envision him scribbling down his angst with a quill by firelight in some lonely room -- he's really a '90s and beyond guy who creates poetry while driving in the car or writes on a computer in the hubbub of his own kitchen.

Pinsky said he loves poetry because, like computers, it's fast.

He has said that computers and poetry have two things in common: Speed and memory.

Pinsky's love for computers started in 1984 when a software company employed him to design a video game.

He's worked to increase the availability of poetry on the Internet and is editor of the Internet poetry magazine, Slate.

Pinsky, who has called poetry 'technology that uses the human body,' said he has a shopkeeper's mentality about writing.

'I write to make something, not to reflect,' he said.

'Like a carpenter banging nails into wood, I'm trying to make something.'

Most recently, Pinsky penned a best-selling translation of Dante's Inferno. He has also published five books of poetry and three books of prose.

Pinsky had some advice for teaching poetry in schools: 'It's very important that teachers teach something they love.' Poetry, said Pinsky, begins with love and attachment.

He said teachers should read aloud with conviction, that pleasure in the sounds of poetry should be stressed.

And he said teachers should encourage students to write personal anthologies, 15 or 20 pages 'written out by their hand, of language that the student lives.'

Pinsky said that even if a kid doesn't like to read, he or she may listen to rap music, or zone in on a certain TV sitcom because he likes the words.

'There's no such thing as someone completely cold to language,' he said. 'Even non-readers are attuned to the sounds of words.'

Poetry appears to be growing in popularity among average folk in this country, which Pinsky said is because Americans crave a more personal form of expression.

While American pop music, feature films, sports, casual clothing and TV are popular around the world, Pinsky said those creations rely on a centralized, elite group of experts who create on a mass scale. That impersonality leaves an appetite or a void that poetry can fill.

Pinsky is planning something personal during his two-year stretch as laureate.

Called the Favorite Poem Project, he's just begun a videotape archive which will eventually include as many as 1,000 Americans, both famous and regular folk, reading poems aloud, followed by comment on why they love the poem they chose.

He's already talked to first lady Hillary Clinton, who has agreed to participate.

He is also planning to stage mass poetry readings in major cities, including New York, Los Angeles, St. Louis and, hopefully, Chicago, he said.

Pinsky's ideas for verse come from everything and everywhere.

'Almost anything, if you look at it hard enough, has an imaginative density,' he said, eyeballing a nearby shoe.

'The world stinks of humanity. Everything's waiting to be written about.' 'There's no such thing as someone completely cold to language.

Even non-readers are attuned to the sounds of words.'

Robert Pinsky, poet laureate

Kids take AIDS victim to hearts - Chicago Sun-Times

Oh, Ryan, we will cheer.

We would like to welcome you

here.

We feel sorry for your fight,

But for every day that you are

here,

We can see a little light.

For with you, our faith grows

strong,

To see a human carry on. - 'Ryan's Poem,' by a Hamilton Heights High School student, Arcadia, Ind.

CICERO, Ind. Classmates buy him cola and chips, bake himchocolate chip cookies, walk him to classes and ask him to ballgamesand dances. Art students draw sketches for him. Others write poems.

They all help him remember to take his medicine.

The center of all this attention is Ryan White, the pluckyteenager who became a nationally known outcast at age 13 because hehad AIDS. Now 15 and living in a new town, Ryan says these are thebest days of his life.

'Everything's going pretty good,' he said. 'I'm feeling prettyhealthy. I've got a nice house and a good family.'

Positive words from a boy who has known he was terminally illsince December, 1984, when doctors told him he had acquired AIDSthrough a blood-clotting agent used to treat his hemophilia.

He lived in Kokomo then. For the next 2 1/2 years, he hadalmost no friends. He felt unwelcome in many places. He was barredfrom swimming in some town pools; when he entered a restaurant,people walked out. Cruelest of all, Western Middle School barred himfrom corridors and classrooms.

His mother, Jeanne White, won a court order to force the schoolto accept Ryan, but she couldn't remove the hostility and bitterness.When Ryan walked down the hall, some kids threw themselves againsttheir lockers in exaggerated escape. 'Watch out! Watch out!' they'dtaunt.

'I just turned the other cheek,' Ryan said. 'They just didn'twant anything to do with me at all.'

He retreated into watching television and playing with militarytoys. He badly wanted out of Kokomo.

His wish was met last May when his mother moved with him and hissister, 13-year-old Andrea, to Cicero, 25 miles to the south. Shecombined a loan with an advance from a company developing a TV movieabout Ryan to put a down payment on a three-bedroom house bordered bywoods and a lake.

Sitting at the kitchen bay window, Ryan can look out into thetrees and watch chipmunks and squirrels. In warm weather, he sits inthe patio swing and watches boats on the lake.

Classmates drive him to his new school, Hamilton Heights, inneighboring Arcadia, where he attends half-days because he tireseasily.

Tony Cook, his principal, said Ryan is doing well in the ninthgrade, taking business data processing, algebra, English and biology.His grades at midterm were mostly Bs, and the lowest was a C.

'Arcadia is so much nicer than Western,' Ryan said. 'I didn'thave any friends at all. Out here, I just have hundreds.'

One is Jill Stewart, a 17-year-old senior who is president ofthe student body and sometimes drives Ryan to school. She said the650 students at Hamilton Heights prepared for Ryan's arrival withspecial classes on acquired immune deficiency syndrome that helpedthem better understand the disease.

'I think we all have the human compassion that we should treat ahuman like a human,' she said. 'When he came, no one was planning ontreating him badly. Everyone was a little afraid deep down inside,but then we really started thinking about it. We just wanted to benormal.'

'A lot of us just feel for him in our hearts because of whathe's been through,' said Wendy Baker, a 16-year-old junior. 'We don'twant him to have to go through that again and we're trying to make iteasier on him.'

The invitations to dances and games are all new to Ryan, whotends to shrug them off. 'I'm not much into going to games andstuff,' he said. 'I'm not much on dances either. I keep to myselfmost of the time. I like watching TV a lot. That's about all I do.'

Mrs. White said Ryan doesn't know how to act in socialgatherings because they've been so rare. 'He's been out of contact ofgrowing up from 13 to now, of being around kids his own age,' shesaid. 'Because of his hemophilia, he's not been active in sports.He's just been out of contact with life.'

Ryan has been sick for much of the last three years with avariety of illnesses, including pneumocystis carinii pneumonia, coldsand respiratory and liver problems. In his last year in Kokomo, hewas tutored at home for all but about three months because of theliver problems.

Ryan, whose frail frame has never carried more than 76 pounds,now weighs 72 pounds and has a chronic cough. Most recently he's hadtrouble staying warm and keeping food down. His mother thinks AZT,an experimental drug, increases his appetite and he eats too much,upsetting his stomach.

Mrs. White continues to work in the inventory division of DelcoElectronics Corp. in Kokomo, earning $12.70 an hour. The Ryan WhiteFoundation in Kokomo helps pay medical expenses not covered byinsurance and for Ryan's living expenses when his mother must takeoff work to care for him.

Despite the setbacks and sadness, Mrs. White and Ryan do notfeel sorry for themselves or talk of what might have been.

As painful as Kokomo's rejection was, Ryan enjoyed his half adozen trips to New York for network television appearances and AIDSbenefits. The walls of his house are lined with photographs ofcelebrities who appeared with him, including Elizabeth Taylor andElton John.

Ryan spent a week in September in Los Angeles as a guest ofAthletes for Kids, a nonprofit foundation for ill children, where hehelped mark establishment of the Ryan White National Fund to providefinancial aid to children with AIDS.