Speaking
Programs to Inform and Inspire!
Kerrie is available for author presentations in person and virtually to middle grade, high school, and adult audiences. She regularly participates in panels, interviews, podcasts, and videos. Her programs are described below. Is there something else you’d like to see? Please contact Kerrie.
Kerrie books programs through Authors on Call on the CILC website.
For Middle Grade Learners ages 10 to 13
Kerrie talks STEM and history—tailored to your curriculum and student interests…to get learners thinking and asking questions.
“Bones Unearthed!"
Bones! was an assignment from a publisher, just as in school! Skeletal remains tell us how people across time and space lived, loved, and worked. Bones of kings, bones that were cannibalized, bones of explorers, bones of warriors…. These tell tales that students will encounter later in school, theater, films, and pop culture.
“Mummies Exposed!"
There’s lots more to mummies than King Tut! There are Sleeping Beauties, Masked Men, Tattooed Tourists, and more. New technologies uncover unknown facts about old favorites, such as Ötzi the Ice Man. Newer discoveries reveal Hungary’s Orlovits family laid to rest in a forgotten church crypt. There’s the first Moche warrior priestess found in Peru, bog bodies sunk in Irish wetlands, and the body of a Buddhist monk hidden within a sculpture.
“104 Years of National Parks and How They Almost Didn't Happen”
Little more than 100 years ago, magnificent spots like Yellowstone and the Grand Canyon were fair game for hotel builders and hunters who nearly shot buffalo to extinction. An old hunter, who sported plenty of deer and buffalo heads on his wall, used his power to set aside millions of acres to create preserves, historic monuments, and national parks. His name was Theodore Roosevelt, and he was president of the United States.
“Isaac Newton’s Secret Science”
Students meet the awkward oddball Isaac Newton and learn how his science studies—sometimes at risk to his life—forever changed the way we think about our world and beyond. Lots of STEM and plenty of other intriguing facts explain why Newton was history’s greatest scientist.
For Teen Learners over Age 13 ... and Curious Adults
“Women War Reporters: How They Wrote World ‘Herstory'"
Kerrie explains how personal challenges propelled young American women to report on global conflict from 1914 until now.
“World War 1 in the Eyes of the Young”
Kerrie shares stories of the famous and forgotten young people who fought for the Allies in the Great War. Names you’ll know: Tolkien, Hemingway, and Roosevelt. Others you won’t: Fred Libby the cowboy pilot, the German photographer Walter Koessler, and Henry Lincoln Johnson, a Black soldier whose story wasn’t final until 2015.
"Things I Learned en Route to Looking Up Other Things''
Kerrie shares the odds, ends, and surprises along the trail of writing books for young people. In short, learning is open ended! (With thanks to columnist Sydney Harris for that quote.)