Posted on Monday, October 24, 2005
Patricia Polacco, an award-winning children's author, will speak at Westminster College Thursday, Nov. 10, at 7 p.m. in the Witherspoon Room located in the McKelvey Campus Center.
Author of more than 40 children's books, Polacco never learned to read until she was fourteen, when one of her teachers noticed that she was dyslexic. After catching up with the other students, she went on to earn an undergraduate degree in fine art and a Ph.D. in art history.
"Being learning disabled does not mean dumb at all," Polacco wrote in her biography. "As a matter of fact, most learning disabled children are actually geniuses."
Even though Polacco spent most of her young life in Oakland, Calif., she attributes her story-telling ability to her relationships with her grandparents with whom she lived for a few years after her parents' divorce.
"You probably noticed that in almost every book that I write there is a very young person who is interacting with an elderly person," Polacco writes. "I came from a family of incredible storytellers. My mother's people were from Ukraine and Russia&my father's people were from Ireland, and my extended family was from the bayous of Louisiana. When you are raised hearing stories and not seeing them, you become very good at telling stories yourself."
"Children and adults alike ask me where I get my ideas&I get them from the same place you do&my imagination," Polacco writes. "I would guess the reason my imagination is so fertile is because I came from storytelling and we did not own a T.V."
Polacco also wrote that because she had to listen to the "voice" inside her when she heard the oral stories from her family, it was this "voice" that inspired her thoughts and her imagination. She also thinks that when a person has an electronic "voice" on the screen in front of them, "it drowns out the voice" inside. She asks children and aspiring writers to listen to that voice and turn off the T.V.
Even though Polacco did not begin her writing career until she was 41, she has garnered more than 10 awards since 1988 including: 1988 Sydney Taylor Book Award; The 1989 International Reading Association Award; the 1990 Santa Clara Reading Council Author's Hall of Fame; the 1990 and 1992 Commonwealth Club of California Recognition of Excellence; the 1992 Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators; the 1992 Boston Area Educators for Social Responsibility; the 1993 Jane Adams Peace Assoc. and Women's International League for Peace and Freedom; the 1991 Parents Choice Honors; 1996 North Dakota Library Association Children's Book Award; the 1996 Jo Osborne Award; the 1997 Missouri Association of School Librarians Show Me Readers Award; the 1997 West Virginia Children's Book Award; and the 1998 Mid-South Independent Booksellers for Children Humpty Dumpty Award.
The event, sponsored by the Westminster College Department of Education and the Diversity Symposium, is free and open to the public. Contact Dr. Amy Camardese, associate professor of education at Westminster College, at (724) 946-7183 or e-mail camardah@westminster.edu for more information.
