Posts by Nancy Bo Flood
Laughter and Word Play
Try a limerick. Write one with a friend, laugh a little, giggle, piggle. Choose two words: for starters, try moon and spoon. Make a list of real and nonsense words that rhyme: doom, gloom, room, boom, ploon, groom, stoom, ploom. The only rule is—have fun! Poetry often makes us laugh!
Read MoreEarth
Ages ago, I began as a tiny grain of sand at the bottom of the sea. Millions of other sand crystals surrounded me. The ocean’s water pressed and pressed until we cemented into stone…sandstone! You began as one tiny cell, as small as a grain of sand.
Read MoreWhen Water Weeps
Crying and Healing. Water lets us weep. Crying helps our bodies clean away stress. Our tears contain the chemicals produced by sadness or stress. Or if you are a flamingo, a whale or an Indian elephant, your tears will excrete excess salt, minerals, or oils to keep your eyes clear and your body healthy.
Read MoreWater
What if you had to walk a mile for that glass of cold wonderful water…and when you finally got it, the water was warm, muddy, and with weird things floating in it? Yuck! Over a billion people on our earth spend most of their day walking for water. Some, especially girls, may spend their entire life walking for water.
Read MoreRead at Home, Inc.
We both have observed again and again that children who have difficulty with reading have difficulty with school. The love of reading—and the skills needed for reading—begins at home when a child snuggles next to Mom, Dad, Grandma or an older sibling with a book or a magazine.
Read MorePoetry Rodeo and Round-Up 2018
Participating in the Poetry Rodeo is something I look forward to for months. You’ll see the joy on the faces of the poets taking part. Not only did we have fun, but we shared inspiration and important information about poetry with educators and librarians, encouraging them to use poetry in their work every day.
Read MoreILA-Notable Books for a Global Society
Imagine standing next to a stack of 427 books. Imagine reading them one at a time, begin in January and end in December. Now choose the twenty-five best from all these different books—picture books, novels for young readers and older readers, fiction and nonfiction, and poetry. How would you choose the best? As a member of the ILA-Notable Books for a Global Society that is our task each year. What a wonderful job – reading books!
Read MoreTerry Piestewa
A couple of weeks ago I received a phone call from Percy Piestewa to tell me that her husband, Terry, a Vietnam veteran, had passed on. Percy’s phone call meant so much to me. Terry and Percy welcomed me into their home when I was writing Soldier Sister, Fly Home, a middle-grade novel dedicated to their daughter Lori, the first Native American woman to die in combat on foreign soil. During our several visits we laughed together, cried together, talked story together. Both Terry and Percy have done so much to heal others, to create peace, and to bring people together.
Read MoreSoldier Sister, Fly Home to be a Talking Book!
Arizona State Library has chosen Soldier Sister to become one of their audio selections for the Arizona Talking Book Library. They asked if I would do the reading because patrons prefer listening to the author. We started last week, and so far, it has been a very positive experience. I sure was nervous!
The audio book will be available nationwide through the Talking Book program. I am especially pleased about this because while working on Soldier Sister I came to know the Piestewa family. Mr. Terry Piestewa is a Vietnam Veteran. His eyes were damaged during the war, and because of recurrent infections he has only one eye and can barely see light and shadows. He wanted to read Soldier Sister, Fly Home. Soon he will be able to listen to it.
How special that this book about families and deployment will be available to all, including veterans, who have diminished eyesight.
Read MoreA Favorite Water Moment
Recently, I visited Utah schools to talk about Water Runs Through This Book and the live-giving water cycle. A favorite moment: I was talking about why we need glaciers and ice caps at the poles and I asked the second graders “What is important about the Arctic, the North Pole?”
Read MoreVeterans Day
Veterans Day. Everyone has a part, helping or riding. Families prepare all week. Veterans groom their horses so even the hooves shine. Soldiers from any war or conflict—both women and men—clean and polish tack, get uniforms out, and prepare to ride.
Read More“Walking a Bridge Between Two Worlds”
“I believe that although cultures differ, the human heart does not.” I hope you’ll enjoy this interview with my editor, Yolanda Scott, published by CBC Diversity. Thank you, Yolanda, for the…
Read MoreMeet On The Bridge
I agree with Tim Tingle that even if one does not “know” another culture, sharing one’s perspective is important and valid. The most important research is the experience of participating. Someone once said you don’t begin to know a culture until you hold their babies. I agree.
Read MoreWhen Water Weeps
We Americans, not they or us, but all Americans, we grieve. Every life matters.
“The cure for anything is salt water. Sweat, tears, or the sea.” —Isak Dinesen
Not bullets.
Read MoreWalking hours for water
Have you read A Long Walk to Water by Linda Sue Park? It’s been on the New York Times paperback bestseller list for 40 weeks as people around the world take to heart the lives of people in the Sudan who must walk for hours each day to get the water that sustains their lives.
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