Dan Kelly and son Sam

Their location may change, but their occupation is always animal health. Norwich residents, Dan and Jodi Kelly, founded the first Stonecliff Animal Clinic in Bradford, VT, in 1991. At the time, Jodi says, they had a “pretty historic” farm tucked under the cliffs north of Bradford, where they raised replacement heifers. Dan made farm calls as a large animal vet, and the Clinic began in order to care for the pets of these farmers.

The Kellys dreamed of opening an emergency hospital for animals, a service that was not then available; owners of seriously ill pets had to take them to Burlington or Concord, NH. The junction of two interstate highways seemed like a smart location. They started a satellite Stonecliff Clinic at West Lebanon Feed and Supply, since they “really clicked” with the owners there, and in 2010, they opened SAVES (Small Animal Veterinary Emergency Service) in Lebanon near the high school. (The clinic moved into that building, too.)

Dan, Sophie, and Elliot take a break to shoot some hoops

Success has haunted the Kellys, and as the business grew to almost 30 employees, they found themselves spending more and more time on administrative tasks, and less time with the animal care they love. It was time for another change. Last October they sold the hospital business, staying on to create a smooth transition, which is now accomplished. They have opened the Stonecliff Clinic at 227 Mechanic Street, across from Longacres. (The Bradford clinic was also sold.)

Veterinary surgery and medicine have made astounding advances in recent years. Dan mentions an x-ray they show to children on school tours, of a cat with an arrow shot into both thorax and abdomen. “You wouldn’t believe the things we’ve taken out of dogs,” he exclaims (though most dog owners certainly would). He is pleased to have the skills to heal even extreme cases, though he laments the suffering of the animals he sees.

“Another big concern in general – this is something we worry about – as animal care becomes more advanced, it also becomes more expensive,” Dan says. “We don’t want to see people priced out of caring for their pets. We make a point of working with people to figure out the level of care that will provide the best for the pet and still be workable for the owner. For us it’s never ‘Go big or go home.’”

Dan and daughter Sophie

Dan has a special interest in orthopedic surgery. He’s been trained in a recently developed technique of knee repair for dogs who rupture their ACL. “We’ve created problems without realizing it,” he explains, “by breeding for certain characteristics,” and ignoring changes in conformation. He has studied wild canids, such as coyotes found as roadkills, and seen that the angle of bones making up their knees averages 10° nearer the horizontal than in domestic dogs. The domestic dogs’ steeper angle  changes the forces within  the joint resulting in torn ligaments.  “There’s a paper there,” says Dan, “but I don’t have the time.”

Animal care has always been a family affair for the Kellys, whose four children have all worked in the clinics and on farm calls as well as just spending time with animals. Jodi notes one of the benefits of this involvement: “Many of our clients have been with us for 20 or more years and have watched the kids grow up. The clinic is more like a huge family than a business.”

Jodi Kelly

“My kids have learned so much about life working in the hospital. Lots about how to listen,” says Jodi. Their oldest daughter is now completing a master’s degree in Colorado, aiming for a career in counseling. As far as Jodi knows, none of the children intends to be a vet. “We kind of burned the bridges on that,” she admits. “They saw so much of how it takes so much time. And they have spent many hours cleaning kennels, and waiting for their parents to finish treating just one more sick patient.”

But Dan and Jodi are doing what they love: caring for animals and calming their owners. As the form of their business metamorphoses yet again, they look forward with pleasure to the future, because, says Jodi, “It’s where our heart and soul is.”

Have you hiked the Gile Mountain trail to the fire tower recently? If not, you will be surprised to see the upgrades taking place along the trail. On a recent beautiful, late summer August evening, my companion and I took the drive up Turnpike Road to the trailhead, to make the short 1.4 mile round trip to the fire tower and back.

The first thing I noticed upon arriving was the number of cars parked in the small lot, most of which with license plates other than NH and VT. Mid week, late in the day (but not sunset), late August, I did not expect this many fellow hikers, even on a near perfect late afternoon.

I should not have been surprised, however. Russ Hirschler, executive director of the Upper Valley Trails Alliance, told me “Gile Mountain gets between 5,000 and 10,000 visitors a year,” making it one of the Upper Valley’s most popular hiking areas.

The first section of the trail is the same as I remember from my last hike on it – a wide, dirt path with numerous tree roots to dodge. It wasn’t until I passed the clearing along the power lines that the changes came into focus. We passed a pile of hardpack gravel, and then encountered an impressive stack of flat stone for building steps. Terraced steps made from landscape timbers, recently filled with the hardpack, ushered us into the woods.

A little further up the trail, we saw how those large, flat stones were fashioned into steps. They appeared to be laid in a very professional manner, and would look just as good leading up to a beautiful home as part of a residential landscape design. Yet here we were on a trail in the woods. Every so often, the stones were laid in a manner to allow water runoff to pass through without damaging the trail. I counted somewhere around 90 of these impressive stone steps on the short trail, with more stones awaiting installation. “How did they get these stones and gravel up here, by helicopter?” asked my hiking companion.

George Clark, a member of the Norwich Trails Committee, said several methods were used to transport materials for trail building up the trail. “In the past they’ve used horses, Belgians,” said Clark. Other methods for transport are a narrow, mechanized wheelbarrow-like vehicle, and zip lines, which can help move considerable weight, said Clark.

Russ Hirschler said the movement of materials for trail building is a big part of the work on the trail. “We’ve moved hundreds of tons of material on the mountain,” he said. Being a short trail has made the job a bit simpler, said Hirschler.

Hirschler said the materials moved to the trail include large, flat stone for steps, crib stone, used to build up the sides of the trail, coarse gravel, and hardpack, both used in creating part of the walkway.

Mechanized vehicles get the material to spots along the power line clearing, said Hirschler, then the material is moved by draft horses pulling a sled, small-scale mechanized wheelbarrows, a zip line grip hoist, which utilizes steel cable, and, of course, volunteers.

Those volunteers have been key to the effort, since the current phase of trail work began in 2011. Hirschler said volunteers from the Upper Valley High School Trail Corps, the Tuck School at Dartmouth, King Arthur Flour, Hypertherm, as well as local volunteers organized by the Norwich Trails Committee have all had a hand in rebuilding the trail. The week we were on the trail, Tuck School students, working on various community projects in the area, were taking their turn trail building.

We weren’t the only ones to notice the high level of maintenance on the trail. We encountered a pair of hikers, returning from the fire tower as we made our way up. Here from Scotland, the couple spent the summer at Dartmouth, and wanted to make the trip to the fire tower before returning to Edinburgh. “The view from the tower is marvelous, and this trail is in great condition,” one of them told us.

Upon reaching the tower, we saw several others making their way to the top to enjoy the view. Between a healthy fear of heights from open platforms, and a leg that does not always function as it should, I decided to not make the trip all the way up, though my companion bounded up the seven flights of stairs to the top. A younger couple, making their way down, noticed my hesitance. The woman said “I don’t like heights, but I felt okay because there is fencing and railing.” I commended her for going up, and wondered if I was the only one hesitant about going up the tower. I doubted it.

Trail building is not the only project that’s taken place on Gile Mountain. George Clark said the tower itself was refurbished about a dozen years back, keeping it safe for visitors.

Heading back down, the change of direction gave us a different perspective on the trail work, and the step construction. Curious about the cost of the work, Hirschler told me, “We are on our third grant for work on Gile Mountain.” Grant money received through the Vermont Recreation Trails Program has totaled about $60,000, and with matching funds and in-kind labor, the project is up to about $90,000, said Hirschler.

There is still more work planned for the trail. “We’re a couple years away from having everything done,” said Hirschler. “It’s pretty technical work, and slow and steady wins the race.”

I like the day,” says Ned Redpath with his characteristic smile. “I’m up at 5. I like the people I work with – there’s a good energy in the office.” He should know: he’s shaped his business over 36-plus years in the Upper Valley, first as an independent office, then gathering a team of realtors into the Hanover franchise of the Coldwell Banker group.

Not many children would say “I want to be a realtor when I grow up,” but Ned became interested in the profession about as early as anyone. His roommate at St. Lawrence University was the son of realtors in Montclair, NJ, where Ned had lived for his last two years of high school. The two young men talked about the business a lot. After college and a tour in the military (where the luck of the draw put Ned in Germany instead of Vietnam), he went to work for the roommate’s parents. Ned enjoyed living in Montclair, which had some green space and very easy access to the entertainments of New York City, but, he says, “There was just something missing. It turns out it was the lifestyle.”

Ned, Woody, Kelsey, Amy, Bo and Cathie Redpath at Christmastime

Ned had grown up with occasional visits to his grandmother’s big summer house in Nelson, NH and he was drawn to New England; perhaps it was the call of his preschool years, spent on the South Shore, in Cohasset, MA. “I woke up one day and told my wife at the time, ‘We’re going to New Hampshire,’ he recalls. “I wanted a college town, for the culture and sports, and to be involved in the community.” Before long, he had a job with Linwood Bean, owner of Webster Associates. Bean’s son Clint was also just out of the military and joining the business. Before long, they bought out Clint’s father. “I had the experience and Clint had the bloodlines,” laughs Ned. “It was much better here than in Montclair – in 1972 there was only one stoplight” in Hanover.

After about five years, Ned took a year off to be executive director of a regional professional tennis tour, a fundraiser. He would line up about 20 players for a specific tournament, paying them with seed money from a sponsoring charity. Selling lessons, exhibitions, and tickets to the tournament would recoup the seed money, and more. Sometimes Ned would play to fill out the draw, a challenge he enjoyed. “These guys were good, they weren’t on the circuit, but they were very good,” he recalls.

“Tennis has been a phenomenal door-opener most of my life,” notes Ned. When he moved to the Upper Valley, he joined the Varsity Courts Club, which rented time on the Dartmouth courts. It was a good way for him to stand out. “I guess I was OK – people said, ‘Oh my god, who is this guy?’” Ned recalls. He adds, “My hero was Chuck McKinley. He was a smaller stature guy, like me, and he played serve and volley too.” At the nearby squash courts he met Cathie DeYoe, and eventually the pair realized they were a good match. Next year they will celebrate 30 years of marriage.

Ned and Cathie

In late 1978, Ned opened his own office in Hanover on Main St. in a third floor walkup, but moved to more convenient quarters on Main Street above the old Peter Christians, then moved 10 years later to his present site on West Wheelock. Over 30 years ago he joined the Coldwell Banker franchise. National franchises give local businesspeople national reach, explains Ned: “If someone sells their house in Texas to move here, and they’re looking to buy, say they’ve had a good experience with Coldwell Banker selling their house, they’re more likely to turn to us.” Success breeds success, he finds; now over 70% of clients are repeat customers. The office sells between 400 and 500 units each year.

Though Ned himself now spends more time in administrative work, and less time listing and selling, he enjoys helping people and is willing to flex to meet the expectations of others. “You can’t just be yourself,” he says. “You have to be apolitical, a-religious. You dress up, not down. And have a clean car, no dogs!” He admits that his family’s fondness for Labrador retrievers has clashed with this stricture.

Ned is happy with the community he’s found in Norwich. “Definitely, without question, we’re dirt-road people,” he says. “We have a post-and-beam, Norwich mentality. In Montclair it was wing-tips, suits, and camel-hair coats.”

Ned is in a line of work that makes him keenly aware of development pressures, though it would be shooting the messenger to think that realtors cause growth. He recalls a trip to Tucson: “It was all parking lots and shopping malls and golf courses; the poor desert was really taking it.” Fairly recently Norwich was a small farming town, he says, but now the land “is a little bit in danger, because it’s just too valuable” unless it’s in conservation.

You might wonder if there’s a genetic component to choosing to be a realtor. Ned’s daughter Amy works with Redpath and Co. His daughter Kelsey is a realtor in Park City, UT. Maybe so, laughs Ned, “it could be, or something learned from watching. It’s personality and the ability to be a chameleon.” Wanting to help people – and being willing to help them through times of major decision and stress – are necessary traits. It’s not about architecture and design features; as Ned points out, “It’s a people-oriented business.”

Lindsay McClure and Scott Miller of World Story Exchange

For Scott Miller, the world is full of stories from many cultures, waiting to be told.  And he thinks that by sharing them, the world has a chance of becoming a better place.

“It started on a study abroad to Spain when I was in college,” Scott explains.  “While on the Iberian Peninsula I kept noticing the architecture, the mingling of influences.  In Cordoba I saw the La Mezquita Cathedral which was used by Muslims, Jews and Catholics – multiple faiths worshipping in different ways – in different sections of the same building, each section adorned with details from the others’ traditions.  I found it amazing.”

He noticed that this melding of influences extended to textiles, iron work, tile, and agricultural practices.  “Crops brought from the Middle East – lemons, limes, almonds, oranges, date palms”, he explains, “all originally came to Spain from Arabia. Farming techniques were brought over, too.  The aqueducts built by the Romans are still standing.”

To Scott, these centuries-old elements evidenced the ability of differing ethnicities to live side-by-side and prosper together.  “I came to the conclusion that this peaceful co-existence happened because of leadership.  If the leaders at the time hadn’t seen the value of co-operation, it wouldn’t have been possible.  In fact, diversity is necessary for cultures to flourish.”

This aqueduct, built in Roman times, modified for agriculture under Arab rule, still brings water from the Alpujarra Mountains onto the arid plains of Iberia where crops such as date palms, citrus and almonds thrive – all crops imported from the middle-east while Iberia was under Arab rule.

Scott himself had a kind of multicultural upbringing.  From the time he was a tiny baby until he was 12-years-old, he spent six months of every year in Norwich and six months in Nairobi, Kenya.  His dad, anthropologist/political scientist Norman Miller, PhD holds a research professor appointment at Dartmouth Medical School and specializes in global heath, the environment and human rights.  As part of Dr. Miller’s work, he took his family with him on his annual research trips to East Africa.

“I was always the new kid,” Scott says of his bi-continental upbringing.  “I had to be friendly and outgoing.  And I learned to make friends quickly.”

Still, he thought of the house in Norwich as home.

“I had everything a kid could ask for,” he says of the family’s house on New Boston Road.  “We had woods all around and a pond in the backyard…  It was my playground.”

Educated concurrently in the Hanover-Norwich schools and in British schools in East Africa (with a dose of home schooling thrown in), the scientist’s son possessed a good measure of on-board curiosity from the get-go.  He did his own kind of field work, right in his Norwich backyard.

“I became a master of catching amphibious creatures,” he says, reminiscing.  “I would put on a mask and snorkel, and go down to the pond to look for turtles.  I’d swim up underneath them, and watch to see what they did.  Sometimes I would catch them and – very, very gently – put them in a bucket for a day or so.  But I always put them back in the pond.  I never killed things.  I was more of a curious gatherer.”

He might not have made the connection himself, but it is clear these two abilities in concert – a knack for adapting quickly to new settings and the practice of close observation without interfering – along with a life-long habit of traveling globally, made Scott particularly well-suited to his chosen profession of photojournalism/ethnography.

Scott and his new wife and business partner, Lindsay

On that junior year abroad, the larger questions of how people from very different cultures and opposing religious views work together and prosper captured his imagination.

Then 9-11 happened.  Suddenly the notion that people from varying cultures and religions might live together in peace took on a new and urgent relevance.  Soon after, Scott joined forces with Hanover native Wynne Washburn, and together they launched the Regarding Diversity Project.

In the spring of 2004, Miller and Washburn went back to Spain to document evidence of the pluralism that had been the norm centuries earlier.  They photographed buildings with tile roofs, built with a technology harkening back to the Middle East and China.  They captured Spanish citizens practicing Tai-chi in courtyards that were originally modeled on Middle Eastern open-air patios.  They photographed dancers and street-corner protestors, painters and craftsmen.  They found evidence of cultural medley everywhere they looked and learned a good deal of history in the process.

La Mezquita/Cathedral (Mosque/Cathedral) was built in Cordoba under Arab rule, with successive Christian rulers keeping the structure intact while adding a gothic cathedral in the middle. The structure remains a site of pilgrimage for both muslims and christians.

“As the variety of artists styles and ideas grew in medieval Spain, the inspiration for craftsmen, musicians, poets and other artists grew exponentially,” they wrote.  “Jewish poets began to write verses in Hebrew using the structure of Arabic poems as a base.  Musicians from Bagdad were invited to the Court of Cordoba to teach a new form of musical notation – the form we use today.”

During 2005—2006, ten years after the signing of the Dayton Peace Accords, the partners took their cameras to Bosnia-Herzegovina where the former Yugoslavia had been fractured by decades of war.  Communities and family members of different religions and belief systems, who had lived and worked side-by-side for generations, were suddenly forced to choose sides.  Miller and Washburn traveled from town to town by bus to meet local people and get their perspectives on the aftermath.

“We were interested in meeting people, learning about the current situation with regard to religious tolerance and understanding how people view the progress of healing within themselves and their country,” they wrote at the time. “We knew the peace accords had physically re-integrated the population that had lived side-by-side in Yugoslavia for 46 years, but we wondered if integration is really what the people wanted.”

What they found was an institutionalized fear of “the other.” In the new paradigm of post war Bosnia- Herzegovina, separate schools were established for each language or dialect. “There were multiple schools in the same village the size of Norwich or smaller, each teaching a different version of the same history in a different language. And each municipality was making up its own rules for its schools,” Scott explains.

They visited a high school in the city of Mostar which had separate classes and teachers for Bosnians, Croats and Bosiniaks, though these same students interacted with each other in the hallways and at lunch.

Above and below are photos from a workshop Scott and Lindsay taught earlier this year in the town of Kuta, on the Island of Lombok, Indonesia.

Part III of the Regarding Diversity Project took place in 2006-2007 when they went to India to explore the southwestern state of Kerala where a 5,000-year-old culture had been built on a philosophy of pluralism. Here they explored the harmonious co-existence knitted together by Jews, Muslims, Hindis and Christians. “Our most important finding,” Miller and Washburn wrote, “…was that economic interdependence between religious groups provides an incentive for tolerance.” Muslim fishermen knew that if they fought with their Hindu neighbors as was happening elsewhere in the country during the riots of 1992 and again in 2002, they would lose their customers. “If we riot with the Hindu merchants,” explained the fisherman, “who will buy our fish?”

Eventually, Miller went to graduate school and earned a Masters degree in International Affairs and Ethnographic Studies from the New School in NYC. While in New York, he took part in the Global Video Letters project in the South Bronx. He and others went into the community and, working with NGOs and community activists, taught kids the skills they needed to “tell their own stories about what they see, experience and want to share with the world.”

Then in the fall of 2010 and the winter of 2011, Miller completed a documentary film called “Our Global Campus” in St. Johnsbury. He worked with adults with developmental disabilities for six months, teaching them the basics of filmmaking and helping them to complete video projects about their lives. The result is a startlingly personal record of the everyday lives of these Vermonters. They play sports, they socialize, they talk about what they care about, they make plans – all right to the camera, in their own words.

“My approach has always been to ‘capture’ what I see on film. Appreciating what is all around – wanting to participate but not influence,” Scott says about his work. “As a photographer and explorer, my work begins with a question: how can we all live together in peace?”

Lately Scott, along with his wife and business partner Lindsay McClure Miller (they were married this past August) work together on a project called World Story Exchange in which they “…invite all people to observe their place and create documentary art for global exchange.”
Scott and Lindsay travel around the globe, putting cameras in the hands of children, showing them how to use the equipment and then inviting them to make mini-documentaries to tell their own stories or those of their families and friends.

“There are two basic philosophical foundations for my work,” Scott explains. “First, I am interested in using youth-made media to create bridges of communication, and thus foster new understandings and appreciations between participants. These bridges can connect people from different generations, different cultures, different socio-economic groups, and others.

“Secondly, I am interested in fostering active citizens through the creation of documentary artwork. My students are typically assigned some type of community questioning, either making interviews with others or asking students to critically assess the positive, and negative, aspects of their community. Through these acts of on-the-street questioning and engagement, the student is no longer a passive body, no longer a bystander, but is now an active participant in the social order, a citizen, perhaps an activist in the making.”

They have traveled to Vietnam, Brazil, Cambodia, Thailand, Nicaragua, Indonesia, and all over the state of Vermont, teaching children to use still photography, video and audio equipment. Working with the Vermont Folklife Center through its Education Outreach program and “a wide variety of organizations, including K-12 public schools, homeless shelters, teen & parent-child centers, senior centers, public libraries, and organizations for adults with differing abilities,” they have made over 200 short documentaries.

“I continue to be fascinated by humanity,” Scott writes, “I am simultaneously inspired and saddened by our capacity to create and destroy, socially and ecologically, the groups we live among, and the places we share.”

Lisa Cadow (left) and Lisa Christie (right), founders of Book Jam

Long-time Norwich residents may disagree with Neil Gaiman’s assertion, saying that Norwich’s career as a fine town antedates the arrival of the Norwich Bookstore, but who would not agree that the Bookstore improves the town? Not just books, but community-building ideas hatch at the Bookstore, such as the Book Angels program that provides donors an opportunity to give books to children at Christmas. And, through the energy of two booksellers, “The Book Jam,” a jazzy blog, was born in 2010 to spread news of good books. Lisa Christie and Lisa Cadow stated their mission: “We’re here to help you out of those troublesome ‘book jams.’ You’re in a ‘jam’ when you ask: ‘What should I read next?’ ‘What’s the best new cookbook to give Mom?’ ‘What do I, rural girl in a flannel shirt, give my sophisticated best friend who lives in New York City or Seattle?’ We aim to put the right book in the right hands at the right time.”

The Book Jam’s roots are both practical and idealistic. Christie explains, “The blog started because the Bookstore needed a stronger internet presence. And we both really strongly believe in the power of books and stories to change lives.” She adds, “Basically, we decided the blog would not be ‘work.’ We’re not book critics per se – if we don’t like something, we don’t review it.” Enthusiasm shines through the blog and makes you want to abandon other projects and run to the library or the Bookstore or your “to read” shelf and start reading!

The two Lisas read whatever catches their fancy, whether because of reviews, events in the news, or their own family or travel plans. There have been posts on Pakistan, natural disasters, and Iceland’s Nobel-prizewinning Haldor Laxness. After reading independently, the Lisas consult with each other and find a theme developing for the blog. There’s a new post every other Monday, except in the summer, when they take a “Gone Reading” break from posting – but never from reading. The blog has over 500 subscribers and gets about 1,000 hits a month.

Eventually the Lisas decided to put on a live event, and in April 2012 introduced Pages in the Pub, a sort of speed-dating for books, and a fundraiser for the Norwich Library, held at the Norwich Inn. Four local book mavens each reviewed three books; admission tickets covered a drink and a donation to the library. The Bookstore took book orders. The event sold out and then some, and in later years Lisa Christie has taken it on the road, linking up with independent bookstores in northern Vermont and Rhode Island to spread enthusiasm for good books. (Early notice is here given: Norwich’s next Pages in the Pub will be the week after Thanksgiving.)

Lisa Cadow, who is on the board of the Norwich Library, discovered “Tables of Content,” another fundraising idea. Hosts pick a book they love – “in that year, or in their lives” says Cadow – and guests sign up for a dinner gathering based on the book, not knowing who the hosts are. “Almost more important than the book discussion is the community-building,” Cadow says, though the several thousand dollars each event raises are helping the library achieve opening on Sundays during the school year.

Lisa Christie currently devotes most of her time to parenting, but B.C. – Before Children – she spent several years donating her talents to a non-profit called “Everybody Wins!” which links adult volunteers with children for a once a week reading session. “It’s a great story, how it got started,” says Lisa, launching into her story like the Ancient Mariner. “It began in New York City in 1992. A businessman in the garment district walked by a school every morning on his way to work, and he went in to the principal and said he’d like to read to some of the kids. I guess she looked at him as though he had twelve heads, but he persuaded her and eventually she said OK. He had so much fun doing it, he talked about it at work and got everyone doing it.”

The model is simple: one adult meets once a week with one child to share reading and discussion of a book. Meetings are at lunch or recess, so they don’t disrupt the school program, and it’s supposed to be fun; if the child doesn’t like one book, help them pick out another.

The program attracted the attention of Senators Jeffords and Kennedy, who headed the HEW committee, and they sicced their staffs on investigating. The report came back, “It’s fabulous!” so the senators challenged colleagues and staff to try it at a local elementary school. Apparently the school nearest the Capitol is not a high-performing school, but rather, says Christie, the kind of place where there are shots on the street corners. The program was a success in D.C., and spread to several other cities. An effort was made to bring it to Vermont, but failed.

When she moved to Vermont in 1999 and couldn’t find a paid job, Christie took up the challenge to restart an “Everybody Wins!” program in the state. The first year she established the program in Rutland and Barre. A $2,000 grant from CVPS covered the cost of local coordinators. Her goal was to have 20 volunteers working in each city; by the end of the year she had 40 in Barre and 100 in Rutland. After 4 years she had 17 schools on board, with about 600 volunteers. In the White River School, the closest participating school to Norwich, there has been a volunteer for every kid in the school.

“Teachers in Vermont consistently say, no matter what school, that the people who benefit most are not the highest or lowest performing students, but the average kids in the middle. Is it because they usually don’t get much attention? Who knows, but they become more confident, and more interactive in the classroom.”

Christie is not fussy about formats: paper, e-reader, audiobook – she enjoys them all. With her characteristic gusto she exclaims, “Anything that gets people reading, I’m all for it!”