Natalie Kinsey-Warnock, a children’s book author from Vermont’s Northeast Kingdom, has been visiting K-8 students at the Lunenburg Elementary School and Gilman Middle School since October to teach her Story Keepers humanities curriculum. Story Keepers is part of Lunenburg’s three-year Community Literacy grant from CLiF.

Natalie’s books are often based on her own family stories. Students love her stories and she is encouraging them to reach back into their own families to discover their own wild and wonderful stories.

Students have been learning about the origins of their names and how artifacts from their families help to pass along and preserve stories. In collaboration with Lunenburg’s Historical Society, students have been learning from old photographs, primary and secondary sources for research, and town and land records. Natalie has taught them how to go about poking into the past to unearth interesting stories and fascinating facts.

Also as part of the grant, CLiF purchased books to supplement and complement Natalie’s work with students. Teachers have reported that students find historical and geneological research fun and exciting and helps to make history real.

For a longer story about Natalie and Story Keepers, check out this recent story in the Burlington Free Press.