|
Alan
Garinger’s credentials as educator and author are voluminous. He was an
elementary teacher, principal, and community education director for Muncie
(IN) Community Schools for 27 years. He left education (so he thought) in
1984 to pursue a full-time writing career.
AWARD-WINNING
EDUCATOR
Before entering the
field of children’s literature, Garinger wrote all or part of 70
nationally broadcast educational TV programs, 15 books, dozens of magazine
articles, and 16 computer courseware programs.
The Jay County Indiana native’s one-hour,
award-winning PBS special on early childhood education, “A Good Beginning
Has No End,” was broadcast on public television nationwide. It was named
Best Educational Documentary by the Chicago Film Festival.
His educational laurels include Indiana
Outstanding Young Educator, Indiana Outstanding Community Educator, an
Indiana State Teachers Association award for Exemplary Inner-city
Programs, and appointment to the Indiana Literacy Council.
AWARD-WINNING AUTHOR
The author has also
received awards in the writing field. Midwest Writers awarded Garinger its
prestigious Dorothy Hamilton Award. His Torch in the Darkness was
nominated for the Young Hoosier Reader Award of the Indiana Library
Federation.
Torch in the Darkness
is a classic tale of a peasant boy who becomes an artist in Renaissance
Germany. Prior to Torch, Garinger published a non-fiction youth
book entitled Water Monsters. In addition to three books in the
Jeremiah series, he has completed a new young adult historical novel,
The Journey of the Boy Sims: A Tale of the Vanishing Frontier.
Jeremiah Stokely,
Inventor,
was released in April, 2002, Jeremiah Stokely, Naturalist, in May,
2003, and Jeremiah Stokely, Archaeologist, is due in Spring, 2004.
“Torch,” “Inventor” and “Naturalist” are from Guild Press Emmis
Publishing, “Archaeologist” from
DayLilyPress, Water Monsters from
Greenhaven.
INVENTOR, ENVIRONMENTALIST
Like the hero of his
Jeremiah series, Garinger is himself an inventor, holding patents for the
“Infinity Warp” game and the “Stickler” bulk-mailing machine.
The author is also a
lifelong advocate of nature appreciation and conservation. From 1976 to
1981, he published an environmental magazine, “Breakthrough Plus 40.”
During that time, he inaugurated a project called the “Green Pipeline”
that resulted in the planting of thousands of trees across the United
States. In 1977, he wrote “The Junk Mail Revolt,” a book on recycling, and
from 1977 to 1982 he wrote a monthly column on solar energy for “Muncie
Goodtimes.”
BOOKS WITH CHARACTER
Garinger’s first love
is teaching children and it shows. He not only writes for them with great
understanding and compassion, he also develops and conducts fun
educational workshops and classroom programs related to his books. His
books inevitably combine educational content, character-building issues,
and page-turner plots. His goal is “to educate while I entertain.” His
characters are so real that some children who e-mail Jeremiah on the
author’s Web site believe the hero is a real boy.
Garinger always replies
sensitively, in Jeremiah’s persona, “I’m as real as your
imagination makes me.”
|
