Hello World!

Hello World

By: Jonathon Litton

I have been meaning to put a post up about this book for months!  I first came across it last summer at the Literati Bookstore in Ann Arbor.  I sat for nearly half an hour paging through the book, flipping up the little tabs and being amazed by the myriad of languages that exist around the world. It took everything I had to walk out the door that day without it in my hands, but as I was continuing to amass translated texts at that time, I put this one on the wish list for the future.  I even put up a quick mention of it on my Facebook page then, noting how special and unique I thought it was so that I wouldn't forget to eventually come back to it and hoping that someone else might be inspired to pick it up as well.

A few days before Christmas, I walked into my kid's elementary school to volunteer for their class parties, stopping by the front office to sign in.  The ladies in the office stopped me, telling me "Santa" had stopped by and left something for me, handing me a wrapped package.  I was baffled to see my name scrawled on the paper and tore into it to find a brand new copy of this book!  As much as I questioned the staff, my family and friends, I have yet to learn who so generously gifted me a copy of this beautiful book.

The book is larger than your average picture book and each double page spread features one of the seven continents.  A small figure and a "lift a flap" element exists for languages on that continent.  The name of the language is on the outside, and when you flip it up the word "hello" in that language appears, along with a phonetic pronunciation and an indication of the number of people in that specific location that speak the language.

The book also has other fun facts and interesting details about the regions, native speakers, words from the language and demographic information.  The final two pages then share those same languages saying "Good-Bye"

I have spent hours with this book since it was so kindly gifted to me, flipping up each of the little tabs and trying out how to say "Hello" in languages from around the world.  I think there is immense potential for this book to be used in the classroom and would highly encourage any teachers out there to check it out.

Getting Excited!

It's been a whirlwind around here lately!  I'm halfway through my final semester as an Undergrad - the end is in sight!  But I have a couple of big events coming up related to my project.

On March 18th I will be presenting a workshop at the Michigan Reading Association's Annual Conference.  You can check out information about the conference here.  I am so excited for the opportunity to share these books with educators that have the direct ability to put them into the hands of kids!  Plus, I can't wait to listen to some of the other presenters and maybe even meet some of my writing idols like Jason Reynolds, Lois Lowry or Sharon Draper!

On March 23rd I will be presenting at Eastern Michigan's Undergraduate Symposium.  This event is open to the public and I highly suggest coming to check it out if you have the opportunity.  Event details can be found here   I am personally presenting at 9:15am, but the event lasts all day.  I had the opportunity on Tuesday night to touch base with some of the other presenters at a workshop and the plethora of information covering a wide variety of disciplines is mind-boggling.   I am so proud to be part of this event again this year.

On a more personal note, my journey in Children's Literature is far from over.  In December I was officially accepted into Eastern's Children's Literature Master's program!  This week I also was offered a full-time Graduate Assistantship position of which it took me all of a nano-second to shout YES to!  I will be an instructor of a section of First-Year Writing as well as serving as a TA in an Introduction to Children's Literature lecture. 

I've got a couple other books I hope to get up and posted this week, so keep an eye out for that.  If you'd like further information on either of these events, send me an email!