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The author

Prior to becoming a teacher, I worked for 17 years as a reporter and editor for the Long Beach (CA) Press-Telegram. I covered sports and news and wrote features. Over the last five years of my full-time journalism career I wrote hundreds of book, movie and theater reviews. That's how I got started reviewing children's books and that's one of the reasons I became a teacher. Since 1990 I've reviewed almost 4,500 children's books (picture books and juvenile novels).

My education is diverse. I have a B.A. in comparative literature, an M.A. in American Literature, a multiple subjects teaching credential with an English supplement. I own Single Subject Credentials in Social Science and English.

I taught sixth-grade for six years in a gritty, urban school near Los Angeles. In 2004 I completed my fourth and final year teaching 20th Century U.S. History to juniors at New Technology High School in Napa, CA. It's a demonstration site for the U.S. Department of Education.

The 2003-2004 school year was my last as a K-12 teacher. I'm completing course work on my PhD in Education at UC Davis. When I emerge with my doctorate in two years I plan on teaching at the university level in a teacher credentialing program. Children's literature, of course, will be my primary interest. I keep myself busy by working as an educational consultant for the Buck Institute for Education, the Ohio Department of Education, and various other state and national educational organizations. In the fall of 2005 I started my own consulting business (www.novelapproachpbl.com), specializing in project-based learning staff development for K-12.

I'm also a frustrated author. Read my unpublished manuscripts.