Traveling the States book tour coming

The JGDS series, book 1 - State of Wilderness will have a virtual book tour in November. The stops on the tour include two homeschoolers, three children's authors, and a teacher in Utah. I found Mr. Hughes blog on blogcatalog, thinking that having teachers' blogs would be my best bet to do the tour. I visited his blog and left a comment as I couldn't find an email for him and asked him to host me during the tour. Grant it, he was hesitant and unsure about having an author contact him and wanting this small favor done. He emailed me and asked for more info and after about two email exchanges, he was excited that he contacted me via Google Talk and we spent several hours two nights in a row chatting. We have decided to make his hosting day as a wrap up of a class project we will be collaborating on - a virtual classroom visit working on writing and a small class contest. So we are bringing together the JGDS series on tour, using the contest format that led to my second place win on Armchair Interviews in 2005 and a challenge from my good friend Batya's newsletter to participate in a 2-month long build-up to my book tour. The kids will be excited as I've felt Mr. Hughes excitement through chat about working with a real author and someone who has a book that appeals to their level. I know that 6th grade in his school study World History for their social studies curriculum, but he is willing to do something out of the norm to teach the kids and even go back to a little bit of 5th grade US History for the project to work.

I will do a weekly update on how the project is doing leading up to the tour dates. So be on the lookout.

Virtual classroom visits begin Monday, September 29 and will end about the time the book tour starts on November 17. Looking forward to sharing what this 6th grade class gets out of the pre-tour visits. -- See you in the postings - E :)