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Zombies and wizards are the focus of Parrott reading program

 
Published April 4, 2014

BROOKSVILLE — Parrott Middle School media specialist Crissi Brandhuber was at a Florida Association for Media in Education conference a year and a half ago when she met James Ponti. He has since become a vital part of the reading program for her students.

Ponti has written two zombie books. One of those is Dead City, and Brandhuber encouraged students to read it.

"I got them hooked reading it," she said.

That's where Ponti stepped in.

At the conference, he learned that Brandhuber is from the same county as Weeki Wachee, upon which he loosely based his first book, Animal Attraction. He took an interest in her students, and they were able to videochat with him via computer and ask him questions.

In December, when the school asked her to try something a little different to encourage reading, Brandhuber started two book clubs, the Zombies, who read Ponti books, and the Wizards, who read Harry Potter books.

Something else she added was a schoolwide book fair, modeled after science and history fairs. The students read books and did projects on them with displays. The fair was open to families and coincided with the Scholastic book fair. The Zombie book club did a project as a group.

As a special treat, Ponti came to the school during the day before the March 5 event and signed books.

"With a little bit of flexible planning, James Ponti and 50 sixth-, seventh- and eighth-graders met in the media center and talked zombies and the writing process," Brandhuber said.