An Honor for One of my Children's Books

I received this letter from the Smithsonian Institution yesterday:

Jenny Wei, Education Specialist

Smithsonian Institution
Washington, DC, 20013-7012

Dear Ms. Curtiss:

After reading and thoroughly enjoying your book The Little Chapel that Stood by A.B. Curtiss ©2003, the staff of the National Museum of American History would like to feature the book in our OurStory program.

OurStory is a series of online resources designed to help children and adults enjoy exploring history through the use of objects, quality children's literature, hands-on activities and community excursions.  The central learning activity will encourage teachers and parents to get a copy of the book and read it with their children, then explore the historical content further through extension activities such as field trips, online exploration, or hands-on projects.  You can see how we are using other works of children's literature by going to the OurStory web site (http://americanhistory.si.edu/ourstory/activities/mlk/).

We plan to develop similar activities surrounding The Little Chapel that Stood and the September 11, 2001 collections at our Museum.  The activities will be released in summer 2011, as a part of the Museum’s observation of the tenth anniversary of the September 11, 2001 attacks.

The activities will be made available free of charge through the Verizon Foundation's Thinkfinity web site(www.thinkfinity.org), which provides educational resources for teachers, parents, students and afterschool education professionals, and through the Museum's History Explorer web site (http://historyexplorer.si.edu/), which makes Smithsonian educational resources and online exhibitions readily available to the general public.

We would like permission to use images of the front & back covers and three internal illustrations for non-commercial, educational purposes and will credit the above resources as per your instructions.

The Little Chapel that Stood is a wonderful work of children’s literature that balances historical fact with an uplifting message. Its powerful narrative makes it is the perfect fit for a new OurStory module focused on a difficult anniversary.

I look forward to hearing from you soon.

Sincerely,

Jenny Wei