The 27th annual Hope College Young Authors' Conference on Thursday, April 20, will host more than 650 fourth, fifth and sixth graders from more than 100 schools in West Michigan.
The 27th annual Hope College Young Authors' Conference on Thursday, April 20, will host more than 650 fourth, fifth and sixth graders from more than 100 schools in West Michigan.
The students who will be attending have been
selected on the basis of books they have written or
illustrated. The event will run throughout the morning and
throughout campus.
This year's featured speaker will by Lois Lowry,
author of more than two dozen books, including the Newberry
Award-winning "The Giver" and "Number the Stars." Lowry
will also be available during a book signing in the evening.
Highlights during the morning conference will also
include Hope voice students, who will perform during the
"greeting" at the college's Dow Center at 8:40 a.m., and the
students of the college's Strike Time Dance Company, who
will perform an original story.
The book signing featuring Lowry will run from 7
p.m. to 9 p.m. at Booksellers on Main Street, located at 49
E. 8th St. in downtown Holland. The public is invited to
the book signing, and admission is free.
During the last 26 years, more than 15,000
elementary school children have attended the Hope College
Young Authors' Conference, visiting with authors such as
Tomie de Paola, Stephen Kellogg, Arnold Adoff, Gail Gibbons,
Katherine Paterson, Leonard Everett Fisher and Brian
Pinckney. The conference was established by Dr. Nancy S.
Miller, who is dean for the social sciences and professor of
education at Hope, with the belief that daily opportunities
for all sorts of writing--narrative, personal and
expository--occur across the curriculum and at all grade
levels.
Approximately 80 Hope education students will be
serving as guides for the children during the event.
The conference is underwritten in part by Pepsi-Cola
of Michigan, Grand Rapids.