Frank Hodge's Got Books? Let's Read

Frank Hodge's Hodge-Podge Books in Albany, New York, is a deceiving 240 square feet. By all accounts, it is a colossal bookstore: 23-years-old, with about $1 million in sales annually. Hodge-Podge and its owner have influenced thousands of teachers, parents, and students through renowned reading conferences, school appearances, and hundreds of face-to-face interactions with reluctant readers and their families and children's book illustrators and authors.

At the end of the month, Hodge, an authority on children's literature and a former professor of education, will again mount "Got Books? Let's Read!" an ambitious two-day reading conference for over 300 teachers, administrators, and parents. The event will feature over 50 education sessions staffed by top professionals in the fields of education and the arts, with appearances and signings by dozens of acclaimed children's book authors and illustrators. As in the past, the conference will be held in a nearby hotel.

GOT BOOKS? LET'S READ 2004 conference

Hodge calls this conference, in its second year, the grandson of his ardently popular "Let the Reading Begin" (LRB) conferences that ran for 17 years, beginning in 1985. He tried to retire LRB, after double-bypass surgery when he desired to move on to other things, but he was pulled back in by the entreaties of past participants -- both attendees and presenters. The conferences, which are always held for a full day on Friday and half a day on Saturday, are also end of the year celebrations for many teachers, who meet yearly with colleagues from around the Northeast and Florida. Hundreds of attendees are sent to the conferences by their schools as professional development.

This year's lineup of authors will include Bruce Coville, the Syracuse-based author of many popular children's books and series. Coville is a big fan of Hodge's and dedicated his 1997 book, The Skull of Truth, to him. "I would have dedicated a book sooner to him, but I waited to have one good enough for him," Coville told a reporter for the Albany-based Business Review. He also said that he doesn't know anyone else who has as much knowledge about children's literature as Hodge does. Other authors, including Mem Fox, have dedicated books to Hodge.

Hodge told BTW that he became involved in the conferences, school visits, and presentations to "put the magic back in reading." He found that third graders in schools everywhere regarded reading as the subject they "hate the most." His knowledge and excitement about books has made him the "go-to guy" for local principals, who send teachers and parents of reluctant readers to him.

The secret to his success, Coville said, was his ability to get people "whipped into a frenzy about books."

Hodge does the organizing and mounting of the conference himself. He contacts all the speakers and faces the "nightmare of scheduling" seven different choices for each of the eight hour-long modules.

Hodge has received numerous awards including the Celebrate Literacy Award of the International Reading Association; The Friend to Reading Award of the New York State Reading Association; The Fellows Award of The New York State English Council; and Ambassador to Albany for the work he has done in bringing conference participants to the Albany area.

For more abut Hodge-Podge Books and "Got Books? Let's Read," go to www.hodge-podgebooks.com/. --Nomi Schwartz