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Book Love Foundation hosts Writing & Drawing Family Stories

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Tuesday, 12/02/2025, 1:30p ET
4th - 12th grade classrooms

Writing & Drawing Family Stories hosted by the Book Love Foundation with Penny Kittle featuring Snowball and Me 

Join literacy expert, Penny Kittle, for a program designed to inspire students and teachers to write and draw their family stories. Students and teachers will begin with a quick write about a personal story followed by conversation with debut children’s book author, Nick Willmer-Shiles featuring Snowball and MeNew Yorker Cover Artist and Illustrator, Gayle Kabaker, will demonstrate how family photos can be transformed into art.  Your students will meet the inspiration for Snowball and Me, Abbie Willmer, and hear about her adventures as a United Nations Volunteer throughout the world with her friend,Mirjahon Turdiev.   

This is a true story that shares Uzbek and Mongolian terms and culture with maps and art to support classroom learning. The unique format of this event makes it perfect for teachers and their students of English, Writing, Social Studies, and Art.  Perfect for Grades 4 - 12. 

A portion of proceeds will be donated to the Book Love Foundation to support books for K-12 classroom libraries.

 

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Penny Kittle is dedicated to helping students and teachers develop a passion for reading and writing. Penny teaches freshman composition at Plymouth State University in New Hampshire. She was a teacher and literacy coach in public schools for 34 years. In the summer Penny teaches at the Literacy Institutes at the University of New Hampshire.

Penny is the author of Book Love and Write Beside Them, which won the James N. Britton Award from NCTE. She co-edited Children Want to Write: Don Graves and the Revolution in Children's Writing with Tom Newkirk and co-authored two books on writing with mentor Don Graves. Most recently she co-authored 180 Days with Kelly Gallagher, a text used in teacher preparation programs throughout the United States. She was a columnist for Voices from the Middle, an NCTE publication, for six years.

Penny’s writing has been featured in ASCD’s Educational Leadership, The Colorado Reading Council Journal, The Manitoba ASCD Journal, The Journal of the Colorado Language Arts Society, California English, Scholastic, and Ohio State University’s Adolescent Literacy in Perspective Journal. She has been honored with both the Exemplary Leader Award from the Conference on English Leadership through the National Council of Teachers of English and Thought Leader Award from the secondary section of the International Literacy Association.

In 2012 Penny and her husband founded the Book Love Foundation, a 501(c)(3) non-profit foundation with one goal: to put books in the hands of teenagers.

Snowball and Me
Snowball and Me

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