Laura Purdie Salas

Writing the World for Kids

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Celebrating Fall Leaves!

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Fall is my favorite favorite time of year, and fall color is one of the reasons for that. A couple of weeks ago, Randy and I tried out our inflatable kayak. We were on a small lake in St. Paul, and we got to admire a bit of fall color while a bald eagle hunted […]

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Read-aloud Videos for All Three Can Be… Books

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Lerner has graciously given permission for authors and illustrators to share readaloud videos of their books on public platforms until June 30. So, here are my first three: I was a little (!) awkward on my first try. Here’s A LEAF CAN BE…   I got a little more comfortable with WATER CAN BE…   […]

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Belief in Birds and Asking Teachers for Poetry Tips #PoetryFriday

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Happy Poetry Friday! (Wondering what Poetry Friday is? Click here.) Before I share my poem, I have a favor to ask of any of you teachers. I will be presenting very soon about writing poetry with students. My audience will be pre-service teachers in a course about literacy for birth through grade 3, and I’d […]

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Nebraska Farm Bureau Guide for A Leaf Can Be…

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It is always a treat when a group of dedicated educators and readers choose your book for something and love it enough to create resources around it. I’m honored that the Nebraska Agriculture in the Classroom program has selected A Leaf Can Be… as its May Book of the Month. And they made an awesome […]

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Ready for Earth Day? #ClassroomConnections

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It’s almost Earth Day! It’s a great time to pull out my Can Be… books, which all celebrate our planet. And if you want some book-related activities, go here to find links to teaching guides, activity sheets and more! The focus this year is on plastic pollution, so you might also look for Loree Griffin […]

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First Graders Ponder What Leaves Can Be…

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There is hardly anything a writer likes better than hearing/seeing how readers respond to her work. A writer friend sent me this fun image a few weeks ago. Her sister is a substitute teacher in New Hampshire, and she used A Leaf Can Be… with first graders. They were studying the number 9, and the […]

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Foreign Editions and My Next Book!

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Picture Book Foreign Editions All of my picture books with Lerner/Millbrook have had foreign editions published, and it’s always exciting to imagine kids on the other side of the world reading something I  wrote. Amazing! Here are a few of the iterations over the past few years. Here are some thoughts on foreign editions: Did […]

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Words Live [Slice of Life Tuesday]

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A couple of weeks ago, I came home to a box on my doorstep from Lerner. I thought it might be my author copies of my next picture book, even though that’s still 5 months from publication. I ran into the kitchen and tore open the box. Nope. Not If You Were the Moon. Instead, […]

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A Leaf Can Be… Korean!

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I opened a box from Millbrook/Lerner a couple of weeks ago and was delighted to learn that A Leaf Can Be… has been published in Korean, in Korea! I just love the way the text looks! Whee–it’s beautiful! Hardcover and…audio? published by Neungyule Education, Inc. It’s so amazing to think of my words–well, my ideas–reaching […]

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Leaf Creations by 3rd-Graders

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Last week on Twitter, Madison Bailey shared some 3rd-graders’ leaf creations they made after reading A Leaf Can Be…! How awesome is that? My Can Be… books are all about seeing common things in new ways, and that’s exactly what they did. Some looked at the shapes of the leaves and thought about what they […]

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