Lend a Hand: Exploring Service Learning Through Children's Literature

by Diane Findlay

Help elementary students pursue academic goals while engaging in community service projects. Lend a Hand explores hunger and the homeless, animal welfare, health and safety, the environment, the elderly, literacy and education, building communities and promoting justice. Each chapter provides an introduction to the issue, an annotated bibliography, discussion prompts, examples of related service-learning projects and ideas for acting on needs in your community.

96 pages, Paperback

First published June 1, 2003

About the author

Diane is an avid lifelong reader with many interests. She holds a Masters Degree in Library Science from the University of Iowa and worked in public libraries in Utah, Antigua, and Iowa for ten years. She's lived abroad, traveled extensively, worked in international high school student exchange programs, and hosted several international students in her home. As a freelance writer, Diane has written several resource books for teachers and librarians, had a regular article in LibrarySparks magazine, and writes various other curriculum and library resource materials. BEMUSED is her first work of fiction. MEMORIES OF ANTIGUA: BOOKS, BUGS, BICYCLE PUMPS, BEACHES, AND BLESSINGS shares cherished memories of her family's time living in the West Indies.

A country girl at heart, Diane lives in rural Iowa, where she stays active with family, friends, and her Baha'i community, and from which she and her husband travel the world.