Dear friends,
It occurred to me last night that I’ve been inadvertently secretive about our latest in-school publication. I can assure you, it was not in the least intentional. The truth is, and hopefully this comes as no surprise to any of you, it’s been an incredibly busy spring around here, and it just slipped my mind.
So! Allow me to right that wrong on this sunny spring day. Catherine and I are working right by a big, bright window at Sweetwaters right now. There was some sort of bomb scare earlier, and we were encouraged to vacate the block on which you find your favorite robot shop (and we find our second home). This is worth noting because we recently found out that the previously mentioned suspicious package was in fact a promotional item from the movie Thor. It’s surely not to do with much on this blog, but certainly everyone needs a good laugh now and again, don’t you think?
Okay. For the last year, we’ve been hard at work in two of the incomparable Terry Carpenter’s U.S. History classes each week. The initial idea was to publish a rewritten history book. However, as history shows, plans change. We are flexible here at 826michigan, and quite fond of going with the flow. The flow took us, I am pleased to tell you, to something pretty great.
VERY shortly, we will be delivering 2020: Visions of the [Near] Future to our friends at Thomson-Shore. In it, you’ll find the predictions of a slew of high school students on what the year 2020 will be like. From earthships to multi-million-dollar rap careers to small business ownership to (our personal favorite) robots of all shapes and sizes, this volume is chock full of compelling and compassionate and profound and hilarious pieces by students from the Roberto Clemente Student Development Center. (It seems worth noting that EVERY time I type that school’s name, which is quite frequently lately, I first type Roboto. Chalk it up to old habits dying hard?)
AmeriCorps member Katie Jones, publishing intern Calvin Rye, and I are all hard at work making final edits and putting the finishing touches on this exciting new book, all in the hopes that we can put it into the hands of YOU, the general public, in mid-June.
And so, put it on your radar. As you might expect, it’s going to look GOOD. Really, REALLY good. And that, friends, is your teaser.
Your pal,
Amy
* The book also features a Further Readings section, including — you guessed it — letters from the trenches.