Reflections Collections -- 2/15/11

What a busy few weeks! Some activities listed below will be discussed in this blog post, some in other blog posts. Watch for the links. (Check back in few days for some items that are not yet posted. I will edit this page by adding links when these are posted.)

Alien ©julien tromeur - Fotolia.com
Licensed for use only by Valerie Coskrey

• A committee is working on setting up the newly incorporated RFF, Inc. Mission, goals, bylaws, projects, officers--all must be finalized. Look for an official report on all this activity soon when the Board of Directors authorizes a press release.
• Dave Anderson took part in a couple of book give-aways to young readers. In one, he gave 40 books to a kindergarten class, commenting that it was hard to find this many quality books of speculative fiction for this age group. All in all, he has recently donated 119 books to 3 kindergarten classes. He claimed to have learned that a ratio of just slightly more than 2:1 books per child seems to work best.
• Links to lessons using science fiction are in the first post of the new series "Teaching with Science Fiction." To introduce the series, Andy Love sent links to his educational essays;  Michael Kingsley sent a link to a short paper on Steppenwolf, the Rogue Planet; and Dave Anderson instructs us in what not to ask during a lesson.
• Several conversations at the rff Yahoo! Group, called Talking RFF, produced additional information of interest, including a booklist, opinions on what to call science fiction, how to decide what to recommend to youth, and personal opinions on numerous books. Read about them in the linked individual blog posts.
• A friend sent in a book review on The Grandmother's' Hive, a book suitable for youth written by new member Donna Barr.
• A new series of blog posts called "To Share or Not to Share" continues the search for a rubric began last month.
• David Brin sent an excerpt from his new non-fiction book in a topic called "Skeptical Environmentalist".
• Facebook links were highly informative, as always. Read the FB Reports for 2/3/11 and 2/18/11.
• Review the stats for this blog and the RFF Facebook page.
• Finally, there are additional snippets of historical information contributed by Dave Anderson and by Andy Love and others.

Snippets of History

Dave Describes the Past and Present of RFF

Reading for the Future enters our sixteenth year. RFF, Inc is meeting on line working on bylaws and nonprofit status. RFF, Inc is made up of the old guard and the young turks.

In 1995, Dave Brin, Greg Bear and Gregory Benford were the Killer Bs or young turks who wanted kids to read science fiction. I joined RFF in 1997 when Dave was CONduit's writer guest of honor who asked us what were we doing to get science fiction to the kids. CONduit is Utah's spring sf convention.

RFF will always be a grassroots organization with a common mission. I am giving a Kindergarten 40 pass-it-along books Monday..Friday I gave two Earthsea books to a sixth grader. Not all books are sf. The first word in RFF is reading. So if a kid reads Ender's Game that I passed it along to him -- success. Will he read more sf? Chances are good.

David-Glenn Anderson

Andy Asks for another Hugo Award Category

Andy Love sent a copy of a letter sent to WorldCon a while back. He provided Talking RFF with a copy of the letter during a recent discussion.

Andy Love

Who was Hal Clement, Really?

Some of our members of Talking RFF attended sci fi conventions with Hal Clement, author of numerous SF books suitable for youth; some worked with him on convention projects; some know him personally. Some of these RFFers provided us with this information.

Hal [Clement] used a different name for his teaching life, his writing life and his art life.

Hal was once LGoH, FGoH, & AGoH at the same con using his different names. :-)

Hal's real name was Harry Stubbs.

George Richard was his name as an artist.

One of the organizations with which RFF works closely is the Golden Duck Awards committee of the organization Duckon. Along with the Golden Duck Awards presented annually by Duckon is the annual Hal Clement Award for YA science fiction.

In a message to the RFF member who is also active in Duckon, Dave Anderson offered this snippet of history:

"I presented the Golden Ducks at Conucopia, the 1999 NASFiC on Friday,Aug 27. [http://www.99.nasfic.org] The two real Golden Ducks advocates were at Aussicon Three, Mebourne Australia. Attendance at the presentation included Hal Clement."

Thanks to Dave, Jim, and others.

Stats

Reflections Collections Stats for 2/10/11

Pageviews for last month, January 1011: 160
Pageviews since creation, October, 2010: 889.
Most Popular Post: Wake, Far-Seer and their author Robert J. Sawyer (December 2010)
Second Most Popular Post: Reflections Collections -- 11/7/10 (November 2010)
Third Most Popular Post: Krysia Anderson, A YA herself, Writer and Poet... (November 2010)

Reading For the Future page on Facebook Stats for 2/11/11

214 monthly active users; 20 since last week
325 people like this; 7 since last week
20 wall posts or comments this week; 20 since last week
90 visits this week; 40 since last week

'Til next time~Valerie C.