Another award finalist!

Indiana Jones may be winning over moviegoers in a week, but we have our own winning indie here at Maupin House: The Middle School Writing Toolkit by Tim Clifford is a finalist in the 2008 Next Generation Indie Book Awards! Congratulations, Tim--we'll be keeping our fingers crossed until winners are announced at the end of this month.

GoodSearch...and good for your school

Earn money for your school by using Yahoo's GoodSearch. Every time you start a new search, GoodSearch donates money to a school of your choice (about one cent per search). If an entire school, district, or community gets on board, that could really add up!

Grant opportunities

The May issue of Scholastic Administrator offers a round-up of eight grant opportunities. If you don't subscribe to the magazine, you can find the article online here.

Maupin House has also put together some information on grant writing and funding sources on our website. We hope teachers and administrators find this helpful and are inspired to write some successful grant applications. Good luck and, as always, if you have feedback on our grants page or anything else, please contact us through our website or blog.

The Apron Ladies at IRA

More photos from IRA! Here are The Apron Ladies, Terri Heidger (left) and Beth Stevens (right), at the Maupin House booth and with literacy education professor/author Tim Rasinski.

The conference was a huge success and a lot of fun. Hope to see you at IRA West in Phoenix or IRA North Central in Minneapolis!

Work and play at IRA

The annual IRA conference isn't over just yet, but Carol Baldwin, Maupin House author and "conference correspondent," has been kind enough to share some photos from her time in Atlanta.
From left to right, are Maupin House marketing coordinator Laura Lok, advertising coordinator Rita Beck, author Margriet Ruurs, publisher Julie Graddy, and author Carol Baldwin.

Wikibooks

According to their webpage

Wikibooks is a Wikimedia community for creating a free library of educational textbooks that anyone can edit. Wikibooks began on July 10, 2003; since then Wikibooks has grown to include over 29,136 pages in a multitude of textbooks created by volunteers like you!

So go ahead and contribute to an online textbook...or just take advantage of some free content!

Meet our authors at IRA 2008

The International Reading Association's (IRA) annual conference is May 4-8 in Atlanta, Georgia. Maupin House will be driving up, books in tow, so stop by our booth (#845) to buy our books and meet our wonderful authors. Here is a schedule of presentation times and signing times (at the Maupin House booth) for all of our authors at IRA. Click here to search the convention program for specific session titles and more information. It's going to be a great conference!

• Nancy Boyles, author of That’s a GREAT Answer!, Hands-On Literacy Coaching, Constructing Meaning, AND Teaching Written Response to Text
  
• Presenting at the pre-conference institute Monday, May 4: 9-5PM, Omni Hotel-International Ballroom D
• Signing Monday, May 5: 1:30-2:30PM and Tuesday, May 6: 1-2PM

• Carol Baldwin, author of Teaching the Story
• Presenting Monday, May 5: 11AM-12PM, Room C306
• Signing Monday, May 5: 12:30-1:30PM

• Terri Heidger and Beth Stevens, authors of Become a Good Reader!
  
• Signing Monday, May 5: 10:30-11:30PM and Tuesday, May 6: 9:30-10:30AM
  

• Brod Bagert, author of Hormone Jungle AND Rainbows, Head Lice, and Pea-Green Tile
• Performing at the Poetry Olio, Wednesday, May 7: 7:30-9:30PM, Omni Hotel-International Ballroom F
  
• Signing Monday, May 5: 3:30-4:30PM; Tuesday, May 6: 10:30-11:30AM; and Wednesday, May 7: 10:30-11:30AM

• Margriet Ruurs, author of The Power of Poems AND Virtual Maniac
• Presenting Wednesday, May 7: 12:30-1:30PM, Room C308 and performing at the Poetry Olio, Wednesday, May 7: 7:30-9:30PM, Omni Hotel-International Ballroom F
• Signing Monday, May 5: 2:30-3:30PM; Tuesday, May 6: 2:30-3:30PM;Wednesday, May 7: 2-3PM

• Susan Nations, Mellissa Alonso, and Suzi Boyett. Nations and Alonso are the authors of Primary Literacy Centers AND More Primary Literacy Centers, and Boyett and Nations are the authors of So Much Stuff, So Little Space.
• Presenting Wednesday, May 7: 2-4:45PM, Room B202
  
• Signing Thursday, May 8: 9-10AM

• Connie Campbell Dierking, author of Teaching Early Writing and Reading Together, Literature Models to Teach Expository Writing, Teaching Writing Skills with Children's Literature, AND Growing Up Writing
• Presenting Thursday, May 8: 1-2PM, Room B207
  
• Signing Thursday, May 8: 2:30-3:30PM