These were the few willing subjects I met in Tanzania that allowed me to take their pictures. An eruption of giggles accompanied the reaction of each pupil who caught a glimpse of the freshly taken picture on my camera LCD screen. Moments like those rank very high on my list "best photographer moments ever."
Jim Parkinson hired me a few years ago to make the documentary "The Inheritance of War." At the time he was touring high schools sharing the story of the Bataan Death March and the subsequent slave labor that occurred in Japan during WWII. That endeavor led to writing another book called "Autodidactic," which teaches the importance of taking personal responsibility for one's own learning.
Mr. Parkinson is a man who practices what he preaches. Every time I have been over to his home there are three or more books sitting by his reading chair accompanied by a dictionary. He has seen a pattern between successful people and how much they read and hopes to spark the rising generation's interest in building reading, writing and vocabulary.
Good luck to Mr. Parkinson as he changes the world, one student at a time.
