15th September 2010 - Agatha Christie's 120th birthday

Today is Agatha Christie's 120th birthday and what you see above is this year's Google Doodle depicting Hercule Poirot, her world famous fictional detective.
Agatha Christie, the Queen of Crime, is the best-selling author of all time.  She has sold over two billion books worldwide and has been translated into over 45 languages.  In a writing career that spanned more than half a century, Agatha Christie wrote eighty novels and short story collections. (For comprehensive data  click wikipedia.)

Image Credit: answers.com

In the official website besides the latest news, there is a Delicious Death cake recipe (how appropriate!!!) to celebrate this date, yet what really matters for us teachers is further below on our right hand side under HELP & INFO, I'm a teacher. This page gives you links to what they think are the most useful areas of the Christie's official website and links to readers and teachers’ classroom resources created by Christie’s publishers. Their publishers and other academics have prepared reading guides on some of the most famous books (which some of you might have already used in the classroom with secondary learners): And Then There Were None,
Murder on the Orient Express, or Death on the Nile .
With such a vast bibliography, Agatha Christie has become synonymous throughout the world with England.  Her quintessential “English” characters offer a charming view of a bygone era when people sat down to tea in the afternoon and tended roses in their gardens. The richness of the settings in Christie’s novels add to the great enjoyment when reading her novels and she drew on real places when writing her stories.
Teachers can always find something more and if you are a librarian make sure you check out this : there are tips for reading groups, for a session on the history and development of crime fiction, quizzes on the author... DO read it for inspiration!
Here are a couple of related resources that might be of interest to you:
http://www.answers.com/topic/agatha-christie-large-image
http://www.agathachristie.com/about-christie/the-queen-of-crime/An-Autobiography-2010/
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2010/sep/15/agatha-christie-google-doodle
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/google/8003559/Agatha-Christie-120th-birthday-anniversary-celebrated-by-Google-Doodle.html
http://www.bbc.co.uk/devon/content/articles/2006/09/20/agatha_christie_profile_feature.shtml
http://news.bbc.co.uk/local/devon/hi/people_and_places/history/newsid_8988000/8988240.stm
http://www.englishriviera.co.uk/agathachristie/festival