Janet Riehecky is the author of 115 books for children, including both fiction and nonfiction and ranging from preschool picture books to junior high biography. Her twenty-four volume series Dinosaurs! won the Summit Award for Best Children's Nonfiction, and her Red Door Detective Club Mystery Series is popular with intermediate readers. Please visit her web site www.janetriehecky.com for a complete list of her published books.

Ms. Riehecky has been presenting school assemblies professionally for almost twenty years. She presents four school assemblies and a family night program. In "The Magic of Writing," she performs magic tricks and illusions, linking each to an important principle of creative writing. She takes students through the writing process, showing that writing can be fun. A more specific writing program is "Mystery and Magic." She again uses magic to illustrate her points as she discusses building a mystery plot, developing suspects, planting clues and creating suspense. In "Learning About Dinosaurs," she uses her extensive collection of dinosaur fossils and museum-quality replicas (including a 5' 7" Apatosaurus femur and an entire foot of a Tyrannosaurus) to explain the latest theories about dinosaurs. "The Care and Feeding of Pet Dinosaurs" is a humorous program for younger students. Using huge props and PowerPoint slides, Ms. Riehecky describes how to care for the best pet of all. The is program is for preschool to grade 2 and is forty-five minutes long. The other assemblies are an hour in length and work best for K - 5 audiences ranging up to 200 students. Ms. Riehecky's Family Night program is "Encouraging Writing at Home." In it she again uses magic tricks and illusions to give parents and kids tips on creating a writer-friendly home.

Ms. Riehecky served as the National Director of Kids Love A Mystery from 1998 to 2004. She expanded the program from a few bookstore signings for children's book writers to a literacy program involving 10,000 kids in 31 states. She is a member of the Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators, Mystery Writers of America, Sisters in Crime, the Dinosaur Society, and the Society of American Magicians. She has a B.A. in English from Illinois Wesleyan University, an M.A. in Communication from Illinois State University, and an M.A. in English Literature from Northwestern University.

Fees: $300 for one assembly; $500 for two assemblies; $800 for all day (four assemblies, plus informal lunch with students)

Contact Information:
E-mail: jr@janetriehecky.com
Phone: 847-695-9781
Website: www.janetriehecky.com
Address: 657 Shenandoah Trail, Elgin, IL 60123