GUEST AUTHOR - Shelley Pearsall
A prominent writer of books for young people, Shelley Pearsall, talks to students, teachers, librarians and parents in sessions throughout the day.

Born in Ohio, Shelley Pearsall has enjoyed writing and history since childhood. Her first novel, Trouble Don't Last, was published in 2002. It received the 2003 Scott O'Dell Award for Historical Fiction among other honors. Her second novel, Crooked River, was named a Junior Library Guild selection in 2005. Shelley's newest novel, All of the Above (Little, Brown & Company, 2006) is an ALA Notable book for 2007.

Before writing Trouble Don't Last, Shelley Pearsall was a public school teacher and a museum historian. In her spare time, she wrote historical scripts and short stories for Cleveland-area museums. She was the recipient of an Ohio Arts Council Fellowship in Writing in 1999 and was named the 2005 Children's Writer-in-Residence for the James Thurber House.

WRITING A LETTER TO THE GUEST AUTHOR
Interested students will write a letter to the guest author, Shelley Pearsall, about her Festival presentation or anything else about her books they would like to share. The letters will be presented to the author at the end of this session.

AWARDS CEREMONY
Various prizes and awards are given for Festival activities.  The winner of the Jason Sykes Memorial Essay Contest receives a cash award.  The schools and area newspapers will also be notified of students demonstrating outstanding performance.

JOURNALISM INTERVIEW/WRITING
The Journalism Workshop introduces students to journalistic interviewing techniques by having them participate in a ìpress conferenceî for the guest author and then having them write a news story for possible publication.

IMPROMPTU WRITING
These contests are held during a 50-minute session of the Festival.  Students are limited not only in time but also in how much they can write. They are given a topic at the beginning of the session and are allowed to write only on the front and back of one sheet of paper.  They are not permitted to bring any notes, books or paper of their own. Topics, based upon the Festival Book List, may require students to explain, criticize, compare, contrast or argue points of plot, characterization, theme, setting, etc., in various Festival books, or they may require students to describe situations beyond the stories ñ for example, to create a conversation between two characters from different books.  The highest scores go to those who answer the questions directly and creatively, offer the most appropriate specific details to support their points, organize their material well and use standard spelling, punctuation, etc. The essays are given to the judges with code numbers only, so that no judge knows either the students' names or their schools. Papers are graded by the holistic scoring system.

GROUP WRITING
In this session, students work together as teams on a task which necessitates pooling their understanding of a book or books on the Festival book list and responding imaginatively, according to rules given to the students at the beginning of the session.  The Group Writing rewards not only reading and writing skills but also ingenuity and the ability to cooperate.  For example, one Group Writing activity might ask teams to develop promotional campaigns for books they have read.  To do that, each team would have to prepare a brief news release to booksellers describing the book, a marketing slogan, a newspaper ad, etc.

POETRY SLAM
Calling all poetry lovers!  Come and learn about Poetry Slams - what they are, and how to perform your poetry in competition.  Bring your favorite poem to perform.

DEBATE THE BOOKS
In this session the students will self-select one of the novels and form a debate team.  Teams will choose an issue related to their novel from a given list.  Within their team, points will be developed for point/counterpoint debate.  In turn, each debate team will have the opportunity to present their issues.  The audience will determine if the debate team was able to change their opinion related to the issues presented.  The winning debate team will be the one that can influence the most members of the audience.

DRAMA
Groups of students participate in role-playing of dramatic or comedic situations based upon characters in the Festival books.

BOOK ART
This session will focus on how an illustrator enhances the text of a book.  Students will also have the opportunity to do some drawing.

SO YOU WANT TO BE A WRITER?
Up to ten students will meet with an author to discuss their own writing and to share with the group.  To register for this session, you must pre-submit an outline or a rough draft of a short story to your teacher coordinator by February 7, 2008.  The author will critique the work before the session to help each writer individually and will share ideas with the whole group.  Be sure your story has believable, interesting characters; an appropriate, descriptive setting; and a series of events creating a conflict and its solution.  You may write on any themes present in the current Festival books or one of your own. 

The requirements are:
     ï  Two to five double-spaced pages.
     ï  No binders or folders are to be used.
     ï  Put name and building/school on the first page of the story.
     ï  Number and initial each page of the story.

YOU ARE THE STORYTELLER
The students will listen to a story and learn how a story is told.  They will get a chance to try it out if they want to (no one will be forced.)  We will talk about different ways to tell a story and have fun picking out silly occupations and being ìinterviewedî by the TV journalist (me).  We will also take the ending of one (or more) of the festival books and change it by becoming a character and telling a different ending.

LET'S WRITE A STORY WITH THE AUTHOR
The guest author will create the beginning of a story and challenge students to write the ideal ending.

JOURNALS:  MAKING A PERSONAL AND LIVING HISTORY
In this session, we will explore the possibilities of keeping personal journals.  We will look at journals kept by people throughout history and consider why they kept them.  We will discuss why students themselves might want to keep journals, what they might write about and how they can get started.  Students will have the opportunity to write journal entries and, if they would like, to share with others.

BOOK TALK
ìSome New Books You Wonít Be Able to Put Down.î  Hear about new books your parents and teachers wonít have to force you to read; you will love these and want to talk about them with your friends.

HISTORICAL FICTIONS GREATS
This session is designed for the reader who loves historical fiction and wants to hear more about it and share his/her interest with others; and for the reader who has yet to discover historical fiction and is looking to broaden his/her interests into this genre.

The presenter will begin the session with a brief description of the historical fiction genre.  Then a few series will be presented like the Iain Lawrence High Seas Trilogy:  The Wreckers, The Smugglers and The Buccaneers; The Caroline Lawrence Roman Mysteries Series:  The Thieves of Ostia, The Secrets of Vesuvius, The Pirates of Pompeii, The Assassins of Rome, and the Dolphins of Laurentum.  A discussion of some authors that do a good job with historical fiction i.e. Ann Rinaldi, Donna Jo Napoli, and Carol Matas will follow.  A handout will be provided with suggestions for further reading in this area.  The session will end by taking suggestions from the group about their favorite historical fiction novels.

TAKE FLIGHT WITH FANTASY
ìDo you yearn to slay dragons?  Go beyond Harry Potter in this discussion of great fantasy books for teens.  Share your favorite title or series and hear about exciting new books that take readers beyond the ordinary world.î