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Wordsmith Jr, LLC has a goal of helping young people reach their full potential through education. Collaboration with other groups, families, agencies and schools is a wonderful avenue to help us achieve this goal. Recently we supported a fabulous school, Ile Omode, in East Oakland by giving a donation to their scholarship drive.  Too often we find ourselves competing with other groups that have similar goals. Together we can do far more than we can individually. This applies to organizations as well as individuals. Modeling working together and philanthropy for our children is just one of the ways our children...

We should acknowledge that the world is changing due to the technologicaladvancements made over the past couple of decades. One change is that we areindeed living in a ‘global economy’. All of us are part of this global economy andsometimes we may not even be aware of it. For example, many families have carslike the Volkswagens. Toyotas, Hondas or Mercedes made in Japan and Germany;clothes made in Thailand and Korea, and tennis shoes by Adidas and Nikes made inChina. There’s no getting around it, we are indeed in a global economy. Given this technology of today everyone is just a...

I often find myself reflecting on the state of our children, particularly children ofAfrican descent. As a researcher focusing on the African American experience, I amconstantly reminded by data thrown at us daily about the problems of Black folks.We bombarded with the numbers of us in prisons, unemployed, on welfare roles, inspecial education classes, on drugs, and so forth. As an inquisitive Black woman, Ihave spent a significant number of my 67 years learning about the experience ofAfrican Americans and to be quite frank, given the history and dynamics of race inthis country: the brutal enslavement of our people; Jim...

It has been a very exciting summer. Wordsmith Jr, LLC has reached a milestone. Wejust got on Amazon! See http://amzn.to/2aq6VBF  orhttps://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss_2?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=%22wordsmith+jr%22 You can purchase the books through Amazon or on this website. We are hoping withthe Amazon option, more families can enjoy our books. So please spread the word.This summer, Akira and I also spent the month on the east coast visiting friends andrelatives. We were able to share our work in New York City and in Washington, DC.On June 26th, we were even able to do a book talk at the Busboys and Poets inHyattsville, MD. We are so very happy...

In mid April, we participated as guests in the Jester and Pharley Pfund booth in theannual Los Angeles Times Book Festival. It was held at the University of SouthernCalifornia and although it rained the first day, we learned a lot about how bookfestivals work. We were blessed to meet some fabulous people, bought some greatbooks and sold our books as well. Wordsmith Jr, LLC would like to take this momentto give a special thanks to Mr. Craig Keys, associate Senior Vice President for CivicEngagement, at USC, his staff, and the Saltzman family for giving us a venue and forwelcoming us...