Jennifer Swanson Offers No Charge Curriculum Guide To Teachers And Homeschoolers For Award Winning Penny And Rio Series

Jennifer Swanson’s award winning Penny and Rio early chapter book series features interactive books that lead to exceptional learning. Swanson recently released the third book in the series, Penny And Rio: The Diamond Collar Adventure. For this release she teamed up with Ripple Reader, The Pawsitive Life, The Homeschool Handbook and DogFriendlyCompanies.com to offer a children's contest. No-charge curriculum guides are also available to teachers and home schoolers.

Date, 2010, Jacksonville FL] The Penny And Rio series of books feature interactive childrens books that lead to exceptional learning. Penny and Rio: The Diamond Collar Adventure, the third book in the series, was released in July 2010. Jennifer Swanson, author of the award winning series, has teamed up with Ripple Reader, The Pawsitive Life, The Homeschool Handbook and DogFriendlyCompanies.com to sponsor a contest for children. She is also offering a no-charge curriculum guide to teachers and homeschoolers.

The contest began on August 1st and will run through September 30, 2010. Children are invited to create their own bejeweled dog collar and to submit either a hand-drawing or a photograph of their creation.

Entries will be judged in three categories:
1) Most creative
2) Most colorful
3) Most beautiful

Three $50 giftcards to Barnes and Noble.com will be given to first place winner. Additional prizes to be given by drawing include:

1 of 20 free e-books of the Penny and Rio series from Ripple Reader (www.RippleReader.com)

One $20 giftcard to www.alldogsbigandsmall.com

Two complete autographed sets of the Penny and Rio 3-book series

Three autographed copies of Penny and Rio: The Diamond Collar Adventure

Winning drawings will be published in The Homeschool Handbook (www.thehomeschoolhandbook.com), The Pawstive Life (www.thepawsitivelife.com) and on www.dogfriendlycompanies.com

"Finding interactive, fun ways to teach children about reading and writing," Ms. Swanson stated, "can be very difficult. With the curriculum I've designed around the Penny and Rio books, kids will learn vocabulary, plot and character development, predicting, and even make text-to-text connections all while enjoying the antics of my dynamic canine detectives. I am thrilled to be able to provide these tools to teachers and homeschoolers as a way to spice up their curriculum"

Penny And Rio: The Diamond Collar Mystery was released July 25th by Mirror Publishing. The book is available on Amazon.com, Barnes and Noble.com and at the authors website at www.PennyAndRio.com. The first two books in the series were recently released in Thailand. Penny and Rio: The Mysterious Backyard Meeting and Penny and Rio: The Locked Doghouse Mystery have been translated to Thai for marketing and distribution to the children of Thailand. The series is also being distributed in France by Mariposa Press.

Ms. Swanson’s books have won numerous industry awards. Both of her previous books, Penny and Rio: The Mysterious Backyard Meeting, and Penny and Rio: The Locked Doghouse Mystery, have won a Mom’s Choice Silver Awards for Juvenile Fiction – Early Reader. The Mom’s Choice Awards esteemed panel of judges includes educators, media and other experts as well as parents, children, librarians, performing artists, producers, medical and business professionals, authors, scientists and others. They have both been awarded The Dove Foundation’s Family-Approved Seal.

The series has received rave reviews from both teachers and homeschoolers. Jennifer Timm, a mom who homeschools, recently stated "As a home-schooling mom of five children, I’m always looking for new and fun curriculum that will excite my kids. Since one of my kids is dyslexic, I have struggled to find any books that will spark her interest enough to read from start to finish; without giving up in frustration! I FINALLY found it with “Penny and Rio: The Mysterious Backyard Meeting”. ...Using the curriculum Jennifer provided, we spent an entire week going over different themes of the book, role-playing and coming up with new adventures for Penny and Rio to go on. It also included writing assignments and a readers quiz at the end. My dyslexic daughter had so much fun during our 'Penny and Rio Week', I now have a child who loves to read. I highly recommend it to any home-schooling family."

For more information about the third release visit www.PennyAndRio.com. For information about the contest and to enter, please visit www.pennyandrio.com/contest Teachers and homeschoolers can download the curriculum at the website at www.pennyandrio.com/homeschoolers.

Ms. Swanson is available for interview and can be reached using the information below or by email at PennyAndRio@yahoo.com. More information is available at her website at www.PennyAndRio.com. Her books are available Amazon.com, Barnes and Noble, IndiePendent Books and at her website.

Profile:

Jennifer Swanson has been writing since the age of 5. A 1990 graduate of the U.S. Naval Academy, Jennifer pursued her other love of science and became a prep school chemistry teacher. Her Navy career took her to Norfolk, VA where she was stationed with her husband, Jon.

Her life changed forever when they adopted Penny, their first dog. Penny was a wonderful addition to their family and less than a year later, they adopted Rio, her best pal. Jennifer kept writing during the next several years as she raised three children, supported her naval officer husband and taught both part and full time.

Today Ms. Swanson continues to work on the Penny and Rio series and recently received her Masters in Education. Jennifer is employed as a middle school science instructor for John Hopkins University’s Center for Talented Youth.

Jennifer is an active member of the Society of Children’s Book Writers. She regularly attends the Florida branch of SCBWI’s conferences in Orlando and Miami. She is also a member of the Florida Writer’s Association.

Contact:

Jennifer Swanson
13780 Harbor Creek Place
Jacksonville, FL 32224
Phone (904) 992-6955
Web: www.PennyAndRio.com
Email: PennyAndRio@yahoo.com