Jane Kurtz

Creating OHBD RSG Books to Enhance Reading Comprehension Skills

Learning to decode words — transforming marks on a page (or screen) into sounds in our brains — is one big reading skill. Learning to read those words fluently in sentences is another. The Creative Team considers those skills as we create Ready Set Go Books. But other skills are needed for understanding the sentences […]

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Only In Ethiopia – So many animals, birds and more to explore in books.

Thirty-one mammals are found only in Ethiopia. Amazing creatures are tucked away in the many eco-regions of the country that has such varied terrain: mountains, plateaus, river valleys, deserts, lakes, and rivers that allow for the survival of animals that can’t be spotted anywhere else in the world. As one example, the Ethiopian wolf –

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Why Do I Volunteer for OHBD? From our Creative Lead, Author Jane Kurtz

In a study published last year in the Journal of Happiness Studies, researchers looked at data from nearly 70,000 subjects and concluded that volunteers were happier. People who start out at a lower level of well-being seem to get even more benefit from volunteering. But I don’t need a study to tell me that volunteer

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Become a Book Ambassador and Bring Stories of Ethiopia to Readers Everywhere

When my first picture books were finally published—stories I had heard as a child in Ethiopia—I woke up to the reality that the artistic journey (already agonizingly hard) had barely begun. I realized it was up to librarians, teachers, and other book ambassadors to put my stories into the hands of young readers. It was

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