From WOOD COUNTY DISTRICT PUBLIC LIBRARY
Several Virtual Visits with the Wood County District Public Library Youth Community Reads author Dan Gemeinhart are scheduled for Wednesday and Thursday, Oct. 14 an 15.
Mr. Gemeinhart will present live from 9:30-10:30 a.m. Wednesday. The following day, Thursday, again from 9:30-10:30 a.m. he will be available for a live Q&A conversation with Maria Simon, Head of Youth Services at WCDPL.
Links to those two streaming events will be posted to the WCDPL Youth Community Reads webpage. Questions for Mr. Gemeinhart to answer on Thursday morning, can be submitted by email to woodkids@wcdpl.org. Also on, Thursday from 4-5 p.m., Mr. Gemeinhart will present a Writers Workshop on a closed Google Meet for young writers who request a link, again by email to woodkids@wcdpl.org. Young writers will be confirmed through email and will receive a “Storymakers” booklet to consider or complete. All three virtual visits will be recorded and shared with schools for one month.
Dan Gemeinhart lives in Washington state and is the author of five middle grade novels. His most recent, The Remarkable Journey of Coyote Sunrise was a 2019 Parent’s Choice Gold Award Winner and is an adventurous story of a young girl determined to accept her life and recapture her good memories. His others: Good Dog (2018) Scar Island (2017) Some Kind of Courage (2016) and The Honest Truth (2015) all feature memorable characters committed to courageous goals and intense adventures despite their difficult circumstances and challenges. Mr. Gemeinhart’s novels are written at 4th-8th grade reading levels, but are great for all ages and are excellent read-alouds.
“Dan Gemeinhart is a well established middle grade author who is actively developing an impressive body of work that inspires and excites readers. This is a great time to meet and read Dan Gemeinhart” says Maria Simon at WCDPL; “he not only gives us opportunities to enjoy a good story and escape from the mundane, but his stories also inspire us to persist and persevere with our own challenges. I encourage everyone to find a Gemeinhart book. I look forward to his future work and am especially pleased we can share him for more personal interaction on Thursday with fellow creators, brave young writers, who are considering and crafting their own stories.”
Multiple copies of Dan Gemeinhart’s novels and audio recordings are available to check out from WCDPL during Express Service and through Curbside Service. Digital copies are also available as EMedia through the various digital collections from WCDPL Overdrive, to Ohio Digital Library, to Hoopla. Links to checkout, hold, or stream copies are easily accessible through the Youth Community Reads Bitmoji Library recently created for students and classrooms as well as any WCDPL reader. This link can be found on the WCDPL Youth Community Reads webpage along with an interactive Padlet Bulletin Board created by WCDPL Children’s Place Staff and loaded with lots of conversation starters, reading suggestions, and activities inspired by Dan Gemeinhart’s novels.
On Tuesday, October 13th at 3pm, the day before, Dan Gemeinhart’s Virtual Visits, the 6th-8th grade Book Group, “Virtual Pizza & Pages” will discuss all of his novels through a Google Meet. This monthly book group is a partnership between WCDPL and BGMS and is open to all area students in 6th -8th grade. Cassie Greenlee from WCDPL and Heather Fallis from BGMS cooperatively run the lively discussions. Students are asked to email woodkids@wcdpl.org or call 4190-352-8253 for a link to this Google Meet discussion.
“We are always hoping to inspire more interest in reading and learning as well as community conversations about stories. Despite our social distancing challenges, we are persisting with inspiration from Dan Gemeinhart, to journey forward virtually this year and learn more from each other. Please join us,” says Maria Simon, “together; we’ll see where this venture takes us.”
For more information, please call the Children’s Place at 419-352-8253 or email at woodkids@wcdpl.org.
