Dear Diana: Travel with me to China!

About the Book

Dear Diana:Travel with me to China! was wriiten for students with a 4th to 6th grade reading level. It is a picture book highlighting interesting places see by the author, a geography teacher, while visiting for nearly three weeks. Since it is a personalized account, it focuses on places that were felt to be of interest to this age group while offering them the ability to easily interpret what the book is telling them about. The author took the pictures herself so as to make this a more credible account available to students.It is the first of a series of books focusing on trips taken by the author to those areas of the world that she is required to teach to her 6th grade geography classes in Sanford, Florida.

About the Author

Margaret C. Collier is an educator living in Orlando, Florida with her husband and Springer Spaniel, Carly. Her youngest son is with the army, her oldest with the Air Force, living in Colorado Springs with his wife Lindsey. Her daughter and son-in-law Robert live in PA. She holds a BA degree in Art education from the Maryland Institute of Art, an MA from in Elementary education and Special education from Marshall University and the College of Graduate Studies in Charleston, WV, and an Educational Specialist degree in Educational Administration from the University of Florida. Travel has become her passion as has the need to share this with her diverse group of 6th grade geography students. This is the second book in a series of high interest, low vocabulary level reading books for geography that will focus on the countries she has seen and will see in the future. Mary T. Cook is an educator and freelance illustrator. She holds a BS degree from the University of Nebraska, Omaha and a master’s degree from the Savannah College of Art and design. She is currently working on a children’s book based on a real life experience a family member had a bus stop with a moose! She lives in Oveido, FL with her husband Ed and their two dogs, Beanie and Owen. Her daughter and her family live in Chicago, her youngest son and daughter-in-law in Oklahoma and he oldest son in the Oveido area. Mrs. Collier and Mrs. Cook have worked together as educators for over 20 years and in that period of time have presented many workshops on the infusing of the arts into social studies. They are now going to embark on a collaboration of their skills to present informative and comprehensive books to children who need high interest materials on their level of reading. They both work for schools in Seminole County, Florida where classes are diverse academically and culturally.