Miriam has had exams at school for the past few days. One day last week, she finished early and decided to draw a map of the world from memory. I'm not saying this is the greatest map of the world ever drawn from memory by an 8-year-old. I am saying that Miriam has not ever been tremendously interested in geography, but reading the Junior Genius Guides Maps & Geography has inspired a few cartographic activities recently. So this map of the world was a new thing for her to try to do, and I was really impressed, even if it IS missing the entire Iberian Peninsula.
I told Miriam we could send it to Professor Ken Jennings (as he is called in the books) and he might see it. So we did.
So imagine how TOTALLY AWESOME it was the next morning to see that the Professor himself had RT'd it! Miriam smiled her special quiet smile that she saves for when she's really happy about something.
I replied to the tweet with some extra context for a few people who were wondering about the extra islands on the map.
There you have it: this is the way kids these days interact with their favorite authors. In my day, you had to maybe ask a librarian for a postal address and maybe a few months later you'd get a type-written reply. Maybe. I think Miriam will always remember this!
I told Miriam we could send it to Professor Ken Jennings (as he is called in the books) and he might see it. So we did.
@KenJennings My 8-year-old daughter has been reading JGG Maps & Geography. Today she drew this from memory! pic.twitter.com/0edzByPiex
— Bridget Palmer (@bmwpalmer) June 11, 2014
So imagine how TOTALLY AWESOME it was the next morning to see that the Professor himself had RT'd it! Miriam smiled her special quiet smile that she saves for when she's really happy about something.
The JUNIOR GENIUS GUIDES: ensmartening America one child a a time. http://t.co/VmXAHTlzUC pic.twitter.com/ir8UsDjXfI
— Ken Jennings (@KenJennings) June 11, 2014
I replied to the tweet with some extra context for a few people who were wondering about the extra islands on the map.
@KenJennings My daughter is THRILLED she got RT'd by Professor Ken Jennings. Re: Atlantis, she said she added some extra islands "for fun."
— Bridget Palmer (@bmwpalmer) June 12, 2014
There you have it: this is the way kids these days interact with their favorite authors. In my day, you had to maybe ask a librarian for a postal address and maybe a few months later you'd get a type-written reply. Maybe. I think Miriam will always remember this!