Watch out, Dinah!

A thief breaks out of jail to track down the sleuth who put her there – Dinah Galloway. Problem is, the thief is a former actress known as “the queen of disguises” for her cunning costume changes. So Dinah knows she’s being stalked, but by whom? Our heroine already has enough on her plate without the addition of revenge served cold: the red-headed 12-year-old is a finalist to sing in commercials promoting beautiful British Columbia.

The deal is, to clinch the job, Dinah has to get fit at a wellness retreat on Salt Spring Island. Veggies? Exercise? Yech! Grudgingly, though, Dinah allows that her lifestyle could be a little healthier. Off to Salt Spring she goes, along with the two other finalists: one friendly, the other the last word in sulky. Her buddies Talbot and Pantelli make their usual disruptive appearances, along with Dinah’s ever-anxious mother and cool, elegant sister Madge. Hoping to shed not only pounds but her vengeful pursuer, Dinah learns the meaning of personal best – it truly is how you play the game, not whether you win.

ISBN 978-1-55469-037-4
$9.95 Cdn
www.orcabook.com
1.800.210.5277

DEAR me, get ready to read!
If you’re on the same page with the BC Teacher-Librarians’ Association, the Greater Victoria Board of Education, Vancouver School Board, the BC School Trustees and many others, you and your local schools are getting ready to Drop Everything and Read on Monday, October 21 for 20 minutes. Says BCTLA Vice-President Karen Lindsay, “The government has said that it wants to make BC the most literate jurisdiction in Canada, and I just think this is a simple little idea that models something for kids. I get a feeling of purpose and peace when I think about it.”

Here’s an idea for how to spend your 20 minutes (and then some). The current issue of BCTLA’s Bookmark is crammed with the latest theories on what makes a child want to read. For example, writes Vancouver School Board District Teacher-Librarian Moira Ekdahl, research has shown that children given a “broad choice of high-interest illustration storybooks” will improve not only in language but in writing and syntax control – and this is without traditional testing on what they read. In other words, “literacy and language development should be pleasurable experiences, not painful ones.”

The Summer of the Spotted Owl ...

A novel about social responsibility, according to School Library Journal.

There's gotta be a better way to capture reluctant readers

And there is -- check out Melanie's September 8 article in the Vancouver Sun, "Why so many are reluctant readers, and what to do about it."

Here's how the article begins:

When Bobby O. stood up to read aloud, we all groaned. The next minutes, as Bobby stumbled painfully over texts by Sir Charles G.D. Roberts or some other venerable Canadian writer, were agony. We were supposed to read along silently, so our eyes would be trapped on every syllable that Bobby mangled. Unsure of what he was reading, Bobby kept his voice to a dull, ambiguous monotone. Eventually the teacher would cut short Bobby’s turn at reading aloud, and pass with ill-concealed relief to the next student.

Bobby, everyone shrugged, was just not a natural reader. Educators would invent the term “reluctant reader” to define kids who reached the intermediate grades and floundered over texts their classmates absorbed with ease. In recent years, however, educators have reconsidered the case of the reluctant reader.

Maybe it’s not that these kids don’t take to reading. Maybe the way reading is taught doesn’t take to them.

Dinah invites you to The World of Stories launch

The cat came back

Reach your imagination to the sky: READ!
"How to raise a reader?" asked the Toronto Star. Well, here's the advice we gave the Star -- which happened, by the way, to be the paper Melanie first worked for.

Inspiration: Like Dinah, Melanie was pest-like as a kid, and got scolded for blitzing people with questions. Undeterred, Melanie found a career that encourages pests: newspaper reporting. Sleuth Dinah is Melanie's idea of a scrappy junior reporter. And, of an optimist. Look around life's corners, and you'll find adventure. As a student, Melanie was involved in theatre; enter Dinah, the red-hot (as well as red-haired) performer with the Judy Garland-like voice. Everyone has a well of life experience. Dinah is what Melanie draws from hers.
Advice for raising a reader:
* Do not shove children's lit at them. They'll grow into it. Let them read comics, cliffhangers, anything to get their minds thinking in book-ese. In learning another language, you start thinking in it; similarly, a person becoming literate starts thinking in a more a flowing, articulate way, with allusions.

* Show your kids that you read! They want to copy you (though they may not know it).
* Make libraries a regular outing, where you both come out staggering under the weight of many tomes.

Meanwhile, look at the lengths my friend Ailie Mooney goes to in promoting literacy.

We're off to see the Silver Birch
Melanie and I are off to Silver Birch week in Toronto. We'll be at the gala ceremony, plus visiting Mabin School, Rippleton Road, Branksome Hall and William Dunbar School. Can't wait! Now ... let's click our shoes together, and off we go ...

When those questions creep up on you
Hey guys, you've sent some great questions in. Our time here at dinahgalloway.blogspot.com is like a bag of ketchup-flavored potato chips: runs out way too fast. But allow us to answer two questions submitted by Di fans:

Q. Hi my name is Sadie and I live in Vancouver. I have really enjoyed reading your Dinah Galloway mystery stories, my favorite being "The summer of the spotted owl" What I like most about them is that there set in Vancouver, no as I'm reading I can relate to the locations such as: Grouse mountain, commercial drive, pacific central station etc. what I also like is how you talked about the spotted owl, the owl rescue center in Langley did a presentation at my school and owls are just such amazing animals, it just breaks your heart to see them disappearing! So anyhow my question for you is are you going to write more Dinah mystery, if so what's the next one going to be about?

A. Hi Sadie,

I am so glad you enjoy Dinah's adventures! I have a special place in my heart for Summer of the Spotted Owl, too. Some of the other books have got more attention, but that's kind of a favourite of mine, too. I know exactly what you mean about a breaking heart.

Yes, there is another Dinah on the way: The Queen of Disguises, coming out in '09. Do you remember the villainess from The Man in the Moonstone? She's back, stalking Dinah! Brrr! ... Thanks for writing!

Oh ... the photo?

And check out Comments for another Q. and A.

Up, up and away!
My spirits are soaring, thanks to the Ontario Library Association. OLA has chosen Shadows on the Train as one of its Best Bets for Children 2007. Here's what OLA had to say:

“Feisty Dinah, the spunky girl detective with the huge singing voice, once again solves a high-paced mystery with humour, energy and ingenuity. This time Dinah is being stalked by a dangerous man from her dead father’s past who will stop at nothing to retrieve a lost treasure. Jackson’s warm-hearted heroine tangles with shady characters, an ex-con, zany situations and learns about rare stamps in her inimitable way.”

Count nine clouds over. That's the one I'm on!

Ailie sleuths to fund-raise for literacy
My sleuthing buddy Ailie Mooney stars in the short story "Napoleon Is Winking," in the September 2008 anthology The World of Stories, published by Gumboot Books to fund-raise for literacy in time for World Literacy Day, September 8. You can see Ailie above, giving Melanie what-for; Ailie's rendered by the very talented artist Eleanor Rosenberg. Way to go, Ailie and Gumboot!

Melanie's photo by Silvia-Moreno-Garcia.

Like Monsieur Voltaire said ...
Have comment, we'll blog it! Okay, so the eighteenth-century French philosopher didn't quite put it like that. What Voltaire did believe, though, amid tut-tutting wags of his long nose, is that everyone has a right to their opinion! That's why we here at dinahgalloway.blogspot.com gladly publish whatever our readers say. We figure that, if you guys have put some thought into your messages, they're worth sharing with everyone. Thanks for continuing to write in! For the latest round of comments, click on -- duh -- "comments," below.

Oh, and check out these Shadow-y comments from Fernfolio!

Best Bets, in books AND in friends
This is a photo of Melanie with her buddy and guardian-angel-librarian, Gianna Dassios, at Chine Dr. School in Toronto. Gianna's the teacher-librarian there, as well as being Melanie's Ontario Library Association rep. for Silver Birch. Melanie counts herself lucky to have Gianna as a good friend -- she has me to thank for that. I brought 'em together!

While Melanie was in TO for the recent OLA SuperConference, she found out that the Ontario Library Association has named Shadows on the Train one of its Best Bets for Children 2007. Yay! Thanks, OLA! Hey, and thanks to Gianna for taking this photo, too.

A-buzz with questions

"Questions are bobbing around like bumblebees" -- Dinah Galloway, in The Summer of the Spotted Owl

I like asking questions, so I'm really impressed by all the Silver Birch readers who are e-mailing in questions and comments about Shadows on the Train. Here's a honey of a batch forwarded to me by my good friend, the ultra-cool Gianna Dassios of the Ontario Library Association. Reprinted, as someone who believes in freedom of expression, without editing!

"Shadows on the train has been one of my favourite books! I think that even though it is not the first book in the series it explains the main character Dinah's personality very well! In this book there have been some very good parts :) and some bad parts :( ! One of the bad parts were when she was taking to her paino teacher and then it just went to another topic without even going into another paragraph or chapter. That was pretty much the only bad part I found! ( So it is full of good parts!) Over all this was an amazing book! :) ;) I thought that this book was amazing :) I haven't read the other books, but I will! I really like all of the trouble and fights that she gets into, trying to prtect the "king"! It was really amazing!"

"I think this was a good book because it was very exciting to hear about the 80,000 dollar envelope and traveling on the train to Toronto from Vancouver. But it sometimes gets a bit boring at parts in the beginning I also like the part(s) on the train like when the nurse gets on and they think there kidnaping Ms.cheerbly. That part i liked."

"I think this is a really good book there is lost of action and I really like the author who did it. I also like it because there was really weird shadows I think "Shadows On The Train" is a good book. I recommend it."

"The part where she reviles herself and everyone is missing is reall cool. I think that they loved the dad."

"I really like this book because I thik Dinah was a realistique caracheter. I like books that are mysteries. I especially like the part where Dinah puts the stamp below her tong. That was cool. At first I thought that she had actually gotten writ of the stamp. I also like the part where on the train where everyone is disapearing. I could really imagine that happening. I did not like the part where Dinah was "captured" the lady. I found it really confusing. I liked the book so much that I even went to the library to get two more."

And, from Theresa Sawada, an ESL and Reading Recovery teacher at Ranchdale Public School: "Dinah is an interesting little detective, with her corny jokes and clever insights. I can see why she would want to understand more about her father and his friends. I liked when she said, "When I sang, I was singing into the shadows as well as everywhere else." It was a passion she shared with her father, and she didn't want to forget or ignore their times together.

"I checked out the blog mentioned in the front of the book, www.dinahgalloway.blogspot.com. You can see a clear drawing of Dinah, with her curly red hair, freckles and glasses. I tried to visualize what she looked like as I read the story, but the cover, of course, just shows a shadow of the character. The blog also talks about how a book reviewer compared the author, Melanie Jackson, to Agatha Christie, one of my favourite mystery writers."

Woo hoo, wiki woman

Pantelli: " 'Woo hoo, witchy woman, she got the moon in her eyes ... ' Know that song, Dinah? It's way cool."

Dinah: "If those odd contortions you're doing are an attempt at dancing, please stop, or else I'll turn the hose on you full-blast. They're very disturbing. Anyhow, for your information, it's wiki woman we're talking about here. As in, my author, Melanie Jackson, who's signed up for Rippleton Road School's Silver Birch wiki! Now kids can post their comments/questions about Shadows on the Train and all the other Silver Birch nominees."

Pantelli: "Now I get it. Wikis. Where everybody adds a piece, whether it's an idea or a question or a fact, and you assemble an online source of information that keeps growing, like a puzzle coming together."

Dinah: "Yeah! And Rippleton, which was Melanie's first school, is the wiki leader, the first of its kind! Teacher-librarian Shaun Grant started the wiki so that ... Well, I might as well let Shaun explain it himself. Hi, Shaun!"


Mr. Grant: "Hi Dinah, hi Pantelli. This wiki provides an opportunity for students to leave mments regarding the Silver Birch book that they just read. My goal is to provide my students with an opportunity to connect with the authors of the books that they are enjoying. I will expand this opportunity to schools throughout Toronto due to the positive support that this wiki site is receiving!"

Pantelli [contorting]: "So, guys, the song oughtta be Wiki Woman. 'Woo hoo, wiki woman ... ' "

Dinah [brandishing hose]: "You might want to step aside, Mr. Grant. A tsunami is about to start."