Jane Kurtz: Translating story books from one language to another

EthiopiaReadsGuest posts

I first heard this truth from my brother, who was an English Language Learner teacher in Portland for twenty years: kids not only learn to read more easily when they are reading in their mother tongue, they also can learn to read in a second or third language more easily if they first learn to read in their mother tongue. … Read More

Jane Kurtz: Illustration

EthiopiaReadsGuest posts

Last year, when I was part of a reading celebration at a Missouri university, I listened to an illustrator, Wendy Halprin, share fascinating ideas about a project that focuses on the connection between literacy and drawing. Find out more at Wendy’s homepage drawingchildrenintoreading.com. She was telling me about what scientists are finding: as a Huffington Post article puts it, “Recent … Read More

Jane Kurtz: The Power of Books

EthiopiaReadsGuest posts

There is something extraordinarily compelling about seeing ourselves in the pages of a book. When I was a kid, I fell in love with The Middle Moffat by Eleanor Estes because the main character’s name was Jane and she was full of misadventures. Just like me. How lucky was I that my mom had read an article by a librarian— … Read More

Jane Kurtz: Turning Stories into Books

EthiopiaReadsGuest posts

Lots of artists and educators around the world look to traditional stories as a source of inspiration and joy. When I was reading aloud to my kids and beginning to capture my own childhood in my first books I did the same thing. The Elephant and the Mosquito illustrated by Courtney Smith. Dr. Laurie Curtis at Kansas State University, wise … Read More

Jane Kurtz: Thoughts on Bookmaking

EthiopiaReadsGuest posts

Our first guest is Ethiopia Reads co-founder and former board chair Jane Kurtz, a well-known children’s author and professor of creative writing. The topic of bookmaking has become a central feature of our organization’s work and we continue to explore to ways to create more and more local-language reading material for children across Ethiopia. Artists are also born every day, … Read More