Great news from Brazil, where The Elephant and Macaw Banner series is being used in classrooms.  At least two textbooks have already been published which use the series to work with students.

The book Roteiro de práticas leitoras para a escola II uses my series and Harry Potter as its two resources for teaching students about speculative fiction.  The book works with the theme song from the series and the website.  It also uses the series to teach history and writing at the same time, challenging students to write their own stories set in Colonial Brazil.  Photographs shows both my books and website being used in the classroom.

Some pages from the textbook (click for full-sized image):

The complete text can be found here.

The other textbook is an activity book called Caderno de Atividades V.  It uses the series to explain the difference between fantasy, science fiction, and horror.  It also recommends playing role-playing games with students and relating this activity to my series.

Images:

This book can be found here.

The two books are excellent, full of innovative activities for the classroom.  I’d like to thank everyone involved for using the series in this way.  Words can’t describe what an honor it is to see my stories used this way.

I’m pleased to announce that “The Fortuitous Meeting of Gerard van Oost and Oludara” has won the 2010 Realms of Fantasy Readers’ Choice Award for Best Fiction! It tied with Scott Dalrymple’s “Queen of the Kangeullas” for the best story published in Realms of Fantasy during 2010, as voted on by the magazine’s readers.

This is a huge honor for me and for The Elephant and Macaw Banner, and I’d like to thank everyone who voted and everyone at Realms of Fantasy for sponsoring this award and for putting out such an amazing magazine.

Thank you all so much!