Ev's Creative Corner

My eight-year-old daughter, Evalyn, has started her own blog called "Ev's Creative Corner"! We are all very excited about it around here, because she is so excited. She has already posted an introduction, two book reviews, and an original poem. AND she has way more followers than I do, after less than three days! 

We received a comment from a reader about her writing that says, "Wow, Evalyn, if I hadn't known you were eight I would've thought you were twenty five!"

I just want you to know that although I have given Evalyn some help setting things up, the writing is all her own. Sometimes she types for herself, but mostly at this point I have been taking dictation for her. The spelling and punctuation are me, but the wording, vocabulary, sentence structure, thoughts and ideas are all Evalyn. 

So far she has been highly motivated to post something new every day. Please visit Evalyn's blog and post a comment, click the "follow" link, and take her poll about what to do on a rainy day. This kind of feedback will keep her going strong!

Thanks!

Jiggle Jam

We attended Jiggle Jam in Kansas City this weekend and had a great time. Jiggle Jam is the only major festival focussed exclusively on children's music. It's amazing. We saw Recess Monkey (and got an interview for Lisa's podcast), Trout Fishing in America, Justin Roberts, They Might Be Giants, Brady Rymer, Dan Zanes, and many more. 

Lisa captured Dan Zanes in a signature jump in the photo above. (She posted a bunch of photos from the weekend on facebook.) What a showman. He took requests throughout his show, and got everyone dancing. He and his band paraded through the audience, singing, at the end of the last song, then stood in the sun signing autographs by the sales table.

Most of the bands were very accessible this way, and that made it a lot of fun. Jiggle Jam III is already in the works, so make your plans now!  

Letter from Perkins

I used to get letters from kids quite often, but I rarely do these days. Last week I performed at Perkins Elementary, and the other day I received this letter from one of the students. Isn't this great?

Let's Get Creative

Oh, yeah, the other big project I did so far this year was to record a new cd with my buddy, Mr. Billy, a children's musician in Wisconsin. We worked long distance together to write and record 12 new songs for this summer's reading theme, "Be Creative at Your Library." We both think this collaboration represents our best work, and we're very excited about it!

Click the CD cover above to visit our CDBaby page, where you can hear samples of all the songs the songs. Let us know what you think!

Oklahoma School For the Blind

Howdy Dear Reader,

Long time no see. Clearly I lost steam on keeping up with blog posts this school year. Over the past two months I performed at Perkins, six schools in Ft. Worth, TX, Sangre Ridge here in Stillwater, Dale Elementary, Prague Elementary, Central High Elementary, Pioneer-Pleasant Vale, and Hollis. Before that I was doing workshops for librarians throughout Kansas and Oklahoma! The workshops were great fun, but kept me very busy. I will try to post a thing or two from all that activity, to catch you up.

Meanwhile I'm getting ready for a forty-four-show summer tour, plus a week at a camp in New York (with Evalyn)! And, I just posted a major new update to my website.

For now, here are some photos I found from back in October 2008 when I visited the Oklahoma School for the Blind in Muskogee. Many thanks to Barbara Collins for sending them in. Do you have any photos from recent Monty Harper shows? Send em and I'll post em! Thanks!