Lucky London Gets Another Ability Guidebook! I Am Going To The Victoria Tower Garden!

London Lucks out and gets another new Ability Guidebook! This one is for Victoria Tower Gardens next to the Houses of Parliament.

Ability Guidebook_ I Am Going To Victoria Tower Garden

Ability Guidebook_ I Am Going To Victoria Tower Garden

Another Ability Guidebook for Lima, Peru! I Am Going To The Love Park!

One of these days I am going to get completely caught up! One book at a time…

In the summer of 2015 I travelled to Peru as a National Education Association Global Fellow. It was an amazing experience and we saw some of the great museums and cultural sights of Peru including Machu Picchu. The Peru Department of Education welcomed us and we toured schools and met students and teachers at one of Peru’s most respected schools and again at one of Peru’s poorest school. It was an incredibly enriching experience.

My way of paying back the lovely people of Peru who treated me with such kindness and respect is to make Ability Guidebooks. I’ve previously posted a book for the Inca Museum in Cusco and now I’m thrilled to add another book to the list for Peru.

I Am Going To The Love Park! Lima, Peru

I Am Going To The Love Park! Lima, Peru

 

Helsinki, I love you! One More Ability Guidebook for Finland! Senate Square.

To wrap up Ability Guidebooks Explore Finland we have a final book!  This one is for Senate Square.

cover Senate Square Helsinki

Ability Guidebook_ I Am Going To Senate Square!

I Am Going To Ride The Helsinki Metro! A New Ability Guidebook for Finland!

In a perfect world every airport, train station and metro would have books like these!  Here is my third book for Finland!

cover Helsinki Metro

Ability Guidebook_ I Am Going To Ride The Helsinki Metro!

I Am Going To Kaisaniemi Botanic Garden! An Ability Guidebook for Helsinki, Finland (autism supports)

Helsinki now has two Ability Guidebooks!  I present:

cover Kaisaniemi Botanic Garden

Ability Guidebook_ I Am Going To Kaisaniemi Botanic Garden

Another Ability Guidebook for Estonia. I Am Going To The Niguliste Museum!

To round out my books for the Art Museum of Estonia I give you: I Am Going To The Niguliste Museum!

Cover Niguliste Museum

Ability Guidebook_ I Am Going To The Niguliste Museum!

I Am Going To The KUMU! A New Ability Guidebook for Estonia!

I am thrilled to announce another international Ability Guidebook! This one is for the KUMU art museum in Tallinn, Estonia!

Cover KUMU

Ability Guidebook_ I Am Going To The KUMU! corrected

I Am Going to the Renwick Gallery! A new Ability Guidebook for people with autism.

Screen Shot 2016-06-14 at 5.29.16 PM

It is always an awesome day when I get another Ability Guidebook finished! This February I was in Washington, D.C. to attend the NEA Foundation Gala and took the opportunity to get pictures for several books.

Many thanks to Precious Crabtree and Kristen Record. The three of us were NEA Global Fellows together in Peru and this is not the first time I’ve dragged poor Kristen off to pose for a book.

In July I have the honor of speaking at the Lincoln Memorial during the Save Our Schools rally and march and in 2017 the NNSTOY conference will be in Washington.  It is my hope by the end of these visits that I will be able to do books for all of the Smithsonian Museums!

I lament that the West Coast does not have a Smithsonian Museum, in fact, more than lament it, I protest it! The National Mall offers free museums for Native American History, African American History, the Holocaust Museum, that National Gallery and more… all free to all comers.  But all those free museums are lumped in a few acres  almost 3000 miles away from Portland.  As much as I’d like to make books for, say, the Smithsonian Museum of Northwest Culture in Portland, Oregon, I’ll hope that day comes some day and in the meantime I will create books for the Smithsonian Museums we do have.

So, without further ado:

Ability Guidebook_ I Am Going To The Renwick Gallery

Brett Bigham is the 2014 Oregon State Teacher of the Year and was awarded an NEA National Award for Teaching Excellence in 2015.

Explore Rome and Visit the Macuteo Obelisk! A New Ability Guidebook!

MacuteoAD

Ability Guidebook_ I Am Going To The Macuteo Obelisk

It is always fun when I get a new Ability Guidebook finished! I am inspired because I have had a volunteer step forward to translate the books into Italian!  You cannot Imagine how exciting it was to get that email!  I am writing these books for Italy knowing that only a few English speaking tourists might ever need them.

But I knew that once the books were in English, if I could find someone to translate, they could then be a valuable tool for people with autism who live in, or who are visiting Rome.

My hope is that I will inspire some people in Italy to step forward and make some books of their own! Even now my friend Bill Pierce is visiting Vienna taking pictures to create some additional Ability Guidebooks. Some of Sam Sennott’s students at Portland State University chose to make a book instead of doing a final paper. These are more awesome people stepping up to help create a permanant library of supports for people with autism! (And a support for teachers who are taking their younger students on field trips to these important cultural destinations).  I am thrilled to have Bill join me in this project and the students of PSU as well!

If anyone has decent pictures of the Vatican Museum entry I sure could use them….mine turned out pretty poorly.

Brett Bigham

2014 Oregon State Teacher of the Year

2015 NEA National Award for Teaching Excellence

It’s Time To Visit The Supreme Court!

supremecourtpicThis book is all about perseverance! In 2014 Mike and I were in D.C. for the White House Honoring Ceremony.  It was an amazing week and we took every spare minute to meet with elected officials during the visit. We had a few minutes in between meeting Senator Merkley and Senator Baldwin and we decided we had time to make a book!

It was pouring down rain as we ran from the Hart Senate Building to the Supreme Court. There was over four inches of standing water in the street!  We splashed through, raced into the Supreme Court and quickly squished our way throught the building taking pictures as fast as I could.

Needless to say, the pictures turned out pretty terrible and I didn’t have the shots I needed to make a book.

Nine months later I was awarded the NEA National Award for Teaching Excellence and Mike and I found ourselves back in D.C.  I had my chance to get those pictures I needed to complete a Supreme Court Ability Guidebook! Again, the weather was none to cooperative. February snows kept us from our photo mission.

Last October I had the honor of being part of Kevin Jennings book tour for his book “One Teacher In Ten In the New Millennium.” He had accepted my essay “Teacher of the Year” for publication and I was able to travel to D.C. and L.A. for book readings. During that trip I was finally able to get the last pictures I needed at the Supreme Court.

So, finally, at last, with great happiness I present

Ability Guidebook I Am Going To The Supreme Court