Join us this Saturday, May 4, in celebrating readers, authors, small indie publishers, literary journals, and the community of book buyers. Rosemont College is hosting a book festival from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. at their main campus (1400 Montgomery Avenue, Rosemont, PA), and Morning Joy Media will be there. MJM author Marianne Modica, author of The R Word, will be reading from her book at 10:15 with a short discussion following. In addition to the many wonderful books, there will be panel discussions, small workshops, and readings throughout the day. We’d love to see you; be sure to stop by our booth and say hello!

The rain held off on Saturday allowing Collingswood Book Festival attendees to enjoy meeting hundreds of authors and booksellers lining Haddon Avenue in Collingswood, New Jersey. Marianne Modica (pictured), author of The R Word, engaged visitors in dialogue about contemporary racism. She shared information about the young adult novel she crafted, which in addition to being a captivating story, can be a tool for educators to stimulate classroom discussion. Librarians and teachers alike expressed the need for such a resource.

Sharing the booth with Modica was Martin Woodside of Calypso Editions. Woodside and Modica are currently doctoral students at Rutgers University.

Marianne Modica, author of The R Word, will be chairing a session entitled, “Shifting Constructions of Race Among Children in Learning Spaces” in November during the annual meeting of the American Anthropological Association in Montreal. The session is sponsored by the Council on Anthropology & Education. She and her team from Rutgers University will present and lead discussion on such subtopics as “Reading Race: Analysis of Preschool-Age Children Interpretations of Racialized Picturebooks,” “Fifth Grade Students Interrogate ‘Sameness’ Through the Lens of The Giver,” and “Multiculturalism’s Unruly Subjects: Undermining and Reimagining Racialized Grammar In School.”

The CAE seeks to “advance anti-oppressive, socially equitable, and racially just solutions to educational problems through research using anthropological perspectives, theories, methods, and findings.”