This is the day the Lord has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it.
The Quarterfinals of the Scripps National Spelling Bee air live on ESPN360.com from 2:00 to 5:30 p.m. ET.
Today is the birthday of G.K. Chesterton (b.1874), U.S. president John F. Kennedy (b.1917), Virginia patriot Patrick Henry (b.1736), and authors Andrew Clements (b.1949), Brock Cole (b. 1938), T.H. White (b.1906), Max Brand (b.1892).
Andrew Clements is a prolific author of middle grade fiction and a former school teacher. You can read fifth grader Karate Kid’s review of No Talking by Andrew Clements here. Karate Kid and Betsy-Bee are both reading Frindle by the same author this summer.
Andrew Clements’s website.
Brock Cole is a writer of young adult novels and an illustrator and author of children’s fiction and picture books. Several of the picture books are derived from classic folk tales, such as The King at the Door (out of print, unfortunately), in which a ragged old beggar at the village inn says that he is really the king, but no one believes him except for a servant. My pastor used this story as a sermon illustration one time, and it worked quite well. Picture books should be used in sermons more often, imho.
Terence Hanbury White is most famous for his Arthurian novel, The Once and Future King. The first part of this novel, called The Sword in the Stone, was Disney-fied into an animated movie, and the latter parts were the basis for the Broadway and the movie musicalCamelot. Camelot, the movie, is on my list of 107 Best Movies Ever. But I still refuse to link Camelot with the Kennedys, even if Mr. White and JFK were born on the same day of the year.
Brock Cole is a favorite here! We love his book Alpha and the Dirty Baby, among others…
The Once and Future King was a book I greatly enjoyed as a teen, and one that I passed on to my own children to read. Also enjoyed (although it’s kind of weird) Mistress Masham’s Repose by T.H. White.