Category Archives: Books

Here s a list of books written for teachers that are worth reading. Enjoy!

Chalkboard books honored as 2024 American Legacy Book Awards finalists!

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I am beyond excited to announce that BOTH my books about exceptional teachers have been selected as finalists for the 2024 American Legacy Book Awards by American Book Fest! Both books, Chalkboard Champions and Chalkboard Heroes, were among the five finalists named in the Education//Academic category.

Jeffrey Keen, President and CEO of American Book Fest, stated that this year’s contest yielded thousands of entries from authors and publishers from around the world. These entries were then narrowed down to the final results. Books were judged in over 100 categories, with one winner and two to five finalists in each category. Awards were presented for titles published between 2010 and 2023. To see the entire list of this year’s winners, click on this link: 2024 American Legacy Book Awards.

My first book, Chalkboard Champions: Twelve Remarkable Teachers Who Educated America’s Disenfranchised Students, was published in 2012 by Wheatmark. This volume was followed by Chalkboard Heroes: Twelve Courageous Teachers and Their Deeds of Valor, published in 2015, also by Wheatmark. Both books share biographical sketches of inspirational educators and their pioneering work in America’s public schools.

In addition to recognition from the American Legacy Book Awards, both volumes have earned praise from educators and educational authors (see the press page), and they have been placed in numerous academic and university libraries throughout the United States, including the University of Southern Mississippi, Rutgers University, Berea College, City University of New York, the University of Chicago, and the Autry Museum of the American West. Chalkboard Champions is also part of the collection of the Library of Congress in Washington, DC.

Thank you so much, American Legacy Book Awards judging committee!

Chalkboard books honored as 2024 American Legacy Book Award finalists!

Posted on by

I am beyond excited to announce that BOTH my books about exceptional teachers have been selected as finalists for the 2024 American Legacy Book Awards by American Book Fest! Both books, Chalkboard Champions and Chalkboard Heroes, were among the five finalists named in the Education//Academic category.

Jeffrey Keen, President and CEO of American Book Fest, stated that this year’s contest yielded thousands of entries from authors and publishers from around the world. These entries were then narrowed down to the final results. Books were judged in over 100 categories, with one winner and two to five finalists in each category. Awards were presented for titles published between 2010 and 2023. To see the entire list of this year’s winners, click on this link: 2024 American Legacy Book Awards.

My first book, Chalkboard Champions: Twelve Remarkable Teachers Who Educated America’s Disenfranchised Students, was published in 2012 by Wheatmark. This volume was followed by Chalkboard Heroes: Twelve Courageous Teachers and Their Deeds of Valor, published in 2015, also by Wheatmark. Both books share biographical sketches of inspirational educators and their pioneering work in America’s public schools.

In addition to recognition from the American Legacy Book Awards, both volumes have earned praise from educators and educational authors (see the press page), and they have been placed in numerous academic and university libraries throughout the United States, including the University of Southern Mississippi, Rutgers University, Berea College, City University of New York, the University of Chicago, and the Autry Museum of the American West. Chalkboard Champions is also part of the collection of the Library of Congress in Washington, DC.

Thank you so much, American Legacy Book Awards judging committee!

 

Great Black History Month read: Warriors Don’t Cry by Melba Pattillo Beals

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Like many teachers, I am always interested in learning more about historical events relating to the education of America’s disenfranchised students. Black History Month is a great opportunity to zero in on the education of our African American students. To learn more about this topic, there are many excellent books you can add to your reading list. Here’s a well-told first-person account about struggles of African American students in Arkansas at the onset of the Civil Rights Movement. The book is Warriors Don’t Cry by Melba Pattillo Beals, one of nine heroic African American students known as famous Little Rock Nine.

On May 17, 1954, the U.S. Supreme Court issued the landmark decision Brown v. Board of Education which declared segregated schools unconstitutional. Three years later, the schools of Little Rock, Arkansas, were still segregated. A plan for gradual integration generated an intensely hostile response from Little Rock’s staunch segregationists. Nevertheless, nine courageous African American students were selected to challenge the status quo and integrate the city’s Central High School.  Clinging stubbornly to Jim Crow tradition, Arkansas Governor Orval Faubus used the Arkansas National Guard to block the entrance of the nine black students into the school, and, in response, President Dwight Eisenhower federalized the Arkansas National Guard and charged the troops with protecting the lives of the nine and enforcing the Supreme Court’s ruling. Every school day that year, the Little Rock Nine braved angry mobs spewing hostilities, racial epithets, and threats to their lives simply for seeking the right to enter their school.

This book, Warriors Don’t Cry: The Searing Memoir of the Battle to Integrate Little Rock’s Central High, tells the story of Melba Pattilllo Beals, one of those valiant nine students. When you read this compelling account, you wonder how any kid could have that much fortitude. This book is a great read for teachers, students, and history buffs. You can acquire a copy of Warriors Don’t Cry from amazon.

Chalkboard Champion Sandra Adickes braves danger during Freedom Summer

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Sandra Adickes was an energetic and idealistic thirty-year-old New York City English teacher in 1964, the year she ventured south into Hattiesburg, Mississippi, to teach in a Freedom School. The goal of the summer program was to empower the Black community to register to vote, and to help bridge some of the gap of educational neglect that had long been a tradition in that Jim Crow state. Both educators and Civil Rights activists realized that only through education and participation in the democratic process could African Americans hope to achieve their long-denied American Dream.
The enterprise was not without danger. On the first day of Freedom Summer, three workers involved in the program disappeared while investigating the firebombing of the church facility designated for their voter recruitment activities. Six weeks later, as Sandra Adickes conducted her classes in Hattiesburg, the badly beaten and bullet-ridden bodies of the three missing men were discovered buried in an earthen dam in nearby Neshoba County.
At summer’s end, Sandra’s fearless students decided—on their own—to integrate the Hattiesburg Public Library in what became, in effect, a graduation trip with an emphasis on civic reform. Sandra was arrested in the effort. Read her riveting story, and what became of her courageous students, in her book Legacy of a Freedom School. You can also find a chapter about this remarkable teacher in my book, Chalkboard Champions.

Author Terry Lee Marzell published in Inlandia anthology

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Author Terry Lee Marzell shows her copy of the newly-published anthology 2020 Writing from Inlandia, which contains two nonfiction pieces she has written. Photo credit: Terry Marzell

Terry Lee Marzell, author of Chalkboard Champions and Chalkboard Heroes, announces that two of her short pieces have been included in an anthology published by The Inlandia Institute. The anthology, entitled 2020 Writing Writing from Inlandia, was just released on September 2, 2021.

The first piece, “Flash Flood Casualties,” describes a true event from Terry’s life, when she was caught in a flash flood while driving through the Southern California desert. The second piece, “The Beauty in a Hundred Mundane Moments,” also nonfiction, describes a typical day in the life of individuals taking part in a community service project. Terry is among some 65 contributors to the collection, which features poetry, nonfiction, and fiction selections. The volume can be purchased on amazon.

Inlandia is a regional literary nonprofit and publishing house. The mission of the organization is to recognize, support, and expand literary activity in all of its forms in the Inland Southern California. The group is supported in part by an award from the National Endowment for the Arts and in part by the California Arts Council. to learn more about the Inlandia Institute, you can visit the website at www.InlandiaInstitute.org.