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Author Guest Post: “It’s Okay to be Optimistic” by Laura Schaefer, Author of A Long Way from Home

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“It’s Okay to be Optimistic”

The soul of A Long Way from Home is its optimism, which leads me to reflect a little bit about where that comes from in my own life. Some of my best memories growing up involved my family’s regular visits to Florida in wintertime. Not only did I love the sun and the beach, but like most kids, I couldn’t get enough of Disney World. There was something about Epcot Center in particular that captured my imagination. The combination of Walt Disney’s cheerful vision of a World’s Fair-style utopia and the regular shuttle launches from Florida’s nearby Space Coast has always stayed with me.

When I moved with my family from Madison, Wisconsin to Central Florida as an adult, I knew I wanted to explore what the future could promise, and what our role could be in creating some kind of real solarpunk society. Feeling inspired by the advent of SpaceX and the ongoing work of NASA, with its regular rocket launches visible from our front yard, I began writing A Long Way from Home in 2018. Though I’m not a scientist or engineer by a long shot, I thought a lot about the people who were making these launches possible—and the skills, dedication, and hard work these events required.

I’m lucky to count among my friends and family several engineers, whose abilities impress and baffle me. The best thing about being a writer is it gives me good excuse to pester them about what they do and why they do it. It was with their help that A Long Way from Home came to fruition. I hope if it contains any glaring inaccuracies, they’ll forgive me…or figure out a way for me to go back in time and fix them.

My wish for this book as it travels out into the world is that readers will get the sense that the events of history and the way that the future unfolds isn’t something apart from them or their lives. Each of us—as individuals and as pieces of a larger community—is engaged all the time in the act of creation. We create the kind of society we want to live in, which is why maintaining core optimism really matters. I believe it’s possible to make our world a peaceful and green one in which more than just a lucky few get to thrive.

It’s not my intention to sound Pollyanna-ish, but it is my intention to sound hopeful. I want to tell stories that inspire readers to make and do beautiful, astounding things in loving, fully participatory lives.

I also want readers to know that if they’re anxious or sad, they’re not alone and that it’s not forever. I see anxiety and sadness as part of being human. If we all talk about these feelings more and the ways we’ve learned to cope, we can be less isolated. Connection with others isn’t a cure, exactly, because there isn’t a cure. But connection is a way forward, even when it’s hard to find hope. I love the fact that Abby is changed by her time with Adam and Bix, and by the choices she makes in order to help them. Her new perspective on the enormity of the universe and the possibilities it contains breaks her malaise and puts her in the captain seat of her life. That’s optimism.

Other people (sometimes from very, very far away) can and do change us, usually for the better.

One of the best ways I personally deal with my feelings and fears is by reading a lot of fiction. It makes me feel better to know other human beings have grappled with tough situations or challenging emotions and grown as a result. Some of my favorite middle grade and young adult reads include:

  • Harriet the Spy by Louise Fitzhugh
  • Tangerine by Edward Bloor
  • A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L’Engle
  • From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler by E.L. Konigsburg
  • When You Reach Me by Rebecca Stead
  • The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett
  • A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith

Some of my favorite authors these days are Andy Weir, Neal Stephenson, Stuart Gibbs, Emily Calandrelli, Jennifer L. Holm, Tana French, Kira Jane Buxton, Hank Green, Ted Chiang, Martha Wells, Becky Chambers, Emily St. John Mandel, Ali Benjamin, Samantha Irby and Ann Patchett.

There’s nothing like a great book if you’re looking to feel better.

Publishing October 4th, 2022 by Carolrhoda Books

About the Book: Twelve-year-old Abby has a lot to worry about: Climate change. The news. The Great Pacific Garbage Patch. And now moving to Florida for her mom’s new job at an aerospace company.

On the Space Coast, Abby meets two boys, Adam and Bix, who tell her they’re a long way from home and need her help. Abby discovers they’re from the future, from a time when all the problems of the 21st century have been solved. Thrilled, Abby strikes a deal: She’ll help them–if they let her come to the future. But soon Abby is forced to question her attachment to a perfect future and her complicated feelings about the present.

About the Author: Laura Schaefer is the author of The Teashop Girls, The Secret Ingredient, and Littler Women: A Modern Retelling. Born and raised in Wisconsin, Laura currently lives in Windermere, Florida, with her husband and daughter, where she enjoys visiting theme parks and watching rocket launches from her front yard. Visit her online at lauraschaeferwriter.com and twitter.com/teashopgirl.

Thank you, Laura, for this enlightening post!

Author Guest Post: “Understand the Rules, Then Forget Them” by Erin Entrada Kelly, Author of Surely Surely Marisol Rainey

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“Understand the Rules, Then Forget Them”

I run a kids book club at my local library. It’s for ages eight to twelve. Each month, we read and discuss a middle grade book then complete a related activity. After we read The Year I Flew Away by Marie Arnold, we created a mural inspired by Haitian art. For Jennifer L. Holm’s The Lion of Mars, one of the students crafted a clay astronaut. To celebrate Gregor the Overlander by Suzanne Collins, we excavated bugs.

One afternoon, as we prepared to discuss Dan Santat’s The Aquanaut, I pulled paper and pencils out of my bag. One of the young readers, Anthony, wrinkled his nose.

“Oh, no,” he said. “We’re not gonna write, are we?”

As a lifelong writer, it’s difficult for me to imagine not wanting to write. But over the years I have come to accept a disappointing reality: A lot of kids really hate writing. For them, it feels like work.

“I’m not good at it,” Anthony said. With a tilted whine to his voice, he added: “I haaaate writing.”

While it’s true that some young people hate writing, will forever hate writing, and will instead excel in some other trade or craft, it’s my mission, as a lifelong wordsmith, to make them hate it a little less.

One of the ways to do that is to eliminate all the qualities about writing that feel like work. Anything that shackles them. Anything that limits their imagination. When our goal is to simply create something, without worrying whether it’s grammatically correct or good or even readable, we are suddenly free to make mistakes. And if there’s one thing I know about young people—they don’t like making mistakes. It’s the mistakes that often prevent them from trying. It’s the mistakes that make them think they’re not good at something.

What if we limit the possibility of error? What if we create simply for the joy of creating?

Here are a few things I’ve done with students.

  • Toss the rules. Give students a writing prompt and encourage them to respond however they want. Tell them not to worry about any rules of grammar or spelling. They won’t be graded on either. In fact, they won’t be graded at all. It will be a ten-minute writing sprint and that’s it. Afterward, give them the freedom of choice: They can keep what they wrote, share it with a friend, or toss it in the trash.
  • Encourage storythinking. When you read books together, stop at the end of each chapter and ask them what they think will happen next. If too many students answer at once, take differing answers from two or three students then take a poll with the rest of the class. If you want to incorporate writing, ask your students to write one or two sentences with their predictions. They don’t need to show their predictions to anyone if they don’t want to.
  • Encourage storytelling. When you finish reading a chapter or a book, ask them how they would have written it to make it more interesting. I ask my book club these questions all the time. Their answer is almost always the same: “More dragons.” In their opinion, dragons always make things more interesting. If your students say “more dragons,” your instinct may be similar to mine—you’ll find yourself explaining why dragons aren’t logical in a story like Charlotte’s Web. But instead of launching into your logical explanation, why not embrace all their ideas? That’s what I did with my book club, and they were immediately engaged, firing off one idea after another, until they reached the end of their own story. For me, the importance of the moment wasn’t to force them to think critically about Charlotte’s Web. It was to get them excited about stories and all the possibilities they offer.

To develop a love of writing, we must develop a love of creativity, a love of storytelling, and an appreciation of how words create stories. Rules, logic, grammar, spelling—all of these sound like work. Because they are work. They serve a purpose, certainly, but they also confine us.

There are times when it’s okay to prioritize creativity above all else, and let the work come later. As grown-ups, we often forget that.

Published August 9th, 2022 by Greenwillow Books

About the Book: Everyone loves sports . . . except Marisol! The stand-alone companion to Newbery Medal winner and New York Times-bestselling Erin Entrada Kelly’s Maybe Maybe Marisol Rainey is an irresistible and humorous story about friendship, family, and fitting in. Fans of Clementine, Billy Miller Makes a Wish, and Ramona the Pest will find a new friend in Marisol.

Marisol Rainey’s two least-favorite things are radishes and gym class. She avoids radishes with very little trouble, but gym is another story–especially when Coach Decker announces that they will be learning to play kickball.

There are so many things that can go wrong in kickball. What if Marisol tries to kick the ball . . . but falls down? What if she tries to catch the ball and gets smacked in the nose? What if she’s the worst kickballer in the history of kickball? Marisol and her best friend Jada decide to get help from the most unlikely–and most annoying–athlete in the world: Marisol’s big brother, Oz.

Told in short chapters with illustrations by the author on almost every page, Erin Entrada Kelly’s stand-alone companion novel to Maybe Maybe Marisol Rainey celebrates the small but mighty Marisol, the joys of friendship, the power of being different, and the triumph of persevering.

About the Author: New York Times–bestselling author Erin Entrada Kelly was awarded the Newbery Medal for Hello, Universe and a Newbery Honor for We Dream of Space. She grew up in Lake Charles, Louisiana, and now lives in Delaware. She is a professor of children’s literature in the graduate fiction and publishing programs at Rosemont College, where she earned her MFA, and is on the faculty at Hamline University. Her short fiction has been nominated for the Philippines Free Press Literary Award for Short Fiction and the Pushcart Prize. Erin Entrada Kelly’s debut novel, Blackbird Fly, was a Kirkus Best Book, a School Library Journal Best Book, an ALSC Notable Book, and an Asian/Pacific American Literature Honor Book. She is also the author of The Land of Forgotten Girls, winner of the Asian/Pacific American Award for Literature; You Go First, a Spring 2018 Indie Next Pick; Lalani of the Distant Sea, an Indie Next Pick; and Maybe Maybe Marisol Rainey which she also illustrated.

Thank you, Erin, for this reminder to allow kids to write freely!

Author Guest Post: “Five Tips to Excite Students About Writing” by Laurel Solorzano, Author of The Land of Fake Believe

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“Five Tips to Excite Students About Writing”

One of the most difficult parts of teaching writing is convincing all students to be involved in the various activities. Some of my students have reached the end of the writing period with NOTHING on their paper. How many distractions could they possibly have had? These five tips should help you get those students not only involved but excited to tell their story.

Tip #1

Allow Alternative Ways to Tell Their Story. Most of the time, my students who have trouble putting words on paper are the ones who talk. Everyone else may be working quietly, but they are talking- to me, to the other students, to themselves. It doesn’t matter if anyone is responding or not, their mouths are moving.

One way I’ve been able to get these students involved is by using a recording device (a phone or an app on a tablet works well). I move them out into the hall and have them record themselves telling their story or answering the prompt. I usually tell them that they have two minutes to record it (any longer than that, and transcription takes a while).

They LOVE doing this, because they can talk and avoid writing for a few minutes with the teacher’s permission!

Once they’ve recorded themselves, depending on the student’s age, I can either use an online program to transcribe it for them (I then have them read what they “wrote” and fix the errors), OR I’ll have them transcribe it themselves.

Tip #2

SHARE their writing. Some of my students have disliked writing because they don’t get the chance to talk/share with their classmates. They prefer to tell the story out loud rather than write it down and pass it to me.

Whenever I’ve given them the chance to read their story/writing out loud, then they get more excited about writing it. They can’t wait to make their classmates laugh!

I give other students the chance to share too, but don’t force it on the quieter ones who already enjoy the writing.

Tip #3

Give them creative freedom. While mentor texts or examples that students can follow is helpful for SOME students, it can make others struggle. How can they make their writing sound like that writing? They become overwhelmed trying to make it perfect, so they either don’t try at all or copy the example writing and just change a word or two.

For example, if you give them the topic of writing about a favorite memory, then give them subject examples, but not paragraph examples. “Did you ever receive a special Christmas or birthday present? What made it special? Where have you gone that you really enjoyed? The zoo, amusement park?” This can get their ideas pumping without feeling like they have to churn out a perfect paragraph.

Tip #4

Don’t compare writing. You probably already know this, and you wouldn’t do it on purpose. However, sometimes, comments slip out accidentally. “Wow! Did everyone see what a great paragraph Johnny wrote?” or maybe even something that you think is more subtle because you are just speaking to the student. “Johnny, that was really great. I don’t know how you do it!”

Written feedback helps avoid this comparison. I always write one thing each student did well and one thing they can improve. Instead of writing that one student needs to fix their verb tenses and their quotation marks, indent their paragraphs, not use fragments, and. . . well, you get the idea. That would be overwhelming as an adult.

Pick one, concrete thing that they can improve, and write that one. For example, “Don’t start sentences with ‘and’” or “Use an apostrophe to show possession.” That way, they can improve and not be overwhelmed.

Tip #5

Connect reading and writing. A lot of students who don’t necessarily enjoy writing do enjoy listening to stories. Even when students can read on their own, they aren’t too old to be read to as well.

Once they have a story in their head, writing prompts related to the story can turn on their creativity.

Read-aloud continues in my classroom even through fifth grade, which is why I love picking stories that are fun not only for the kids but for me to read year after year as well. Check out my book below for a fun classroom read!

Fun Writing Ideas

Now that you have some ideas about how to involve the non-writers in writing time, here are some prompts to use in your class.

  • If you could meet one fairy tale character, who would it be? What would happen when you meet them?
  • (After reading a book or part of a book together) What do you think should happen in the next chapter?
  • Pick one notoriously bad guy (the Joker, the Big Bad Wolf, or Maleficent for example) and write about them as if they were good.

Published September 1st, 2022

About the Book: The Land of Fake Believe is a twisted fairy tale about two siblings and their fateful encounter with real amusement park characters. It is geared to children ages eight to twelve, but can be read aloud to younger children.

In this fractured fairy tale story, twelve-year-old Taylan is angry when her mom scolds her for telling her five-year-old sister, Judy, that Cinderella isn’t real, just as the little girl is about to meet her favorite princess at the famed Happily Ever After amusement park. Relegated to their vacation hotel room for the evening as a punishment, Taylan enlists the help of her ten-year-old brother, Colby, to prove her mom wrong. What they discover in the park after dark is beyond their wildest dreams—or nightmares.

Soon, the siblings find themselves in the middle of a secret century-long battle among the park’s characters—the good Ever Afters and the dark Ever Afters—and are in a race to help their new friends before the Evil Queen takes over the park for good. With Beauty, Cindy, and Peter Pan on their side, will they be able to survive the conflict before it’s too late?

Fun activities after reading the book including a coloring sheet, quiz, and maze: https://www.laurelsolorzano.com/activities

About the Author: Children’s book author Laurel Solorzano has been creating stories since she first learned how to write, completing her first full-length novel while in middle school. Her love for fairy tales is what inspired her to write The Land of Fake Believe.

Hailing from Raleigh, North Carolina, where she lives with her husband, Yader, Laurel is a Spanish and English teacher. When she’s not penning creative stories for young readers, Laurel enjoys reading and spending time with her two dogs. Also the published author of five young adult books, Laurel’s book The Land of Fake Believe is the debut book in a series of twisted fairy tales including book 2-Once Upon a Climb and book 3- The Princess and the Key.

Author Q&A can be seen here. https://www.laurelsolorzano.com/about

Facebook- https://www.facebook.com/laurelsbooks

Signing up for her newsletter on her website is the best way to stay connected!

Thank you, Laurel, for these amazing engaging tips!

Author Guest Post: “In Praise of the Standalone Book” by Stacy Nockowitz, Author of The Prince of Steel Pier

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“In Praise of the Standalone Book”

In 2010, I switched careers. I had been a middle school language arts teacher for many years, and I decided it was time for a change. So, I became a school librarian. It’s the perfect career for someone who loves kids, books, and kids’ books. It’s also a great job choice for someone who doesn’t want to grade even one more essay written by a 12-year-old. And because of this shift to the library, I was able to pursue my lifelong dream of writing books. The Prince of Steel Pier is my debut novel.

You know which parts of my job I love the most? First, I thoroughly enjoy matching students with the perfect book for them. This process is called Readers’ Advisory in librarian lingo. It’s a mini-interview and discussion that helps the librarian connect readers with great book choices specific to their likes and needs. I start off every Readers’ Advisory by asking what I think is the most telling question: What’s the last book you read that you really loved?

The other best part of my job? Filling the shelves! I get to order ALL the books and materials. It’s like a childhood fantasy come true! Yes, I’ll order that one and that one, and oh, I have to get the new book by that author, and I must order that one. It’ll fly off the shelves! Between being a middle school librarian and being a children’s book author, I know what kids like.

And what they like is a long book series. They like getting comfortable with a set of characters and reading about those characters again and again and again. Investing time and emotion in a new protagonist is hard! The path of least resistance, which, honestly, kids are prone to take, means they’ll reach for Diary of a Wimpy Kid #5 and #8 and #16, and on and on. I have reserve lists five-kids deep every time Stuart Gibbs publishes the next Spy School novel. In kids’ minds, long book series rule.

Or do they?

Let’s go back to my Readers’ Advisory opening question: What’s the last book you read that you really loved? Last year, I received an answer from a sixth grader that caught me off guard in the best way. She said, “The last book I really loved was A Night Divided by Jennifer Nielsen. I don’t really want to read another series. After, like, the third book, they all get repetitive and boring.”

I wanted to hug her when she said that.

Stand-alone books make me smile. And as a writer, I understand how difficult a great stand-alone is to pull off. Stand-alone books do all their own heavy lifting. They work their 250-page tails off (or 350 or 180; you get the idea). The author of a stand-alone knows she only has one shot at capturing her audience. None of this “You’ll find out in book 4 why he and his dad don’t get along” or “It will all make sense once you finish book 7” stuff. Good stand-alone books give readers a satisfying character arc and a complete storyline. A reader can finish the last page of a stand-alone and close the book with a gratified exhale. Nothing more is needed. It’s like leaving the dinner table sated after a delicious meal. Sure, you can raid the fridge for leftovers later, but the experience just isn’t the same, is it?

Historical fiction is especially well-suited for the stand-alone format. Authors of historical fiction evoke a moment in time, the only moment when that story could have happened to that person in that place. Thanhha Lai didn’t need to make Inside Out & Back Again into a six-book series. This National Book Award-winning stand-alone tells us one story: Hà’s story, as her family flees war-torn Vietnam and comes to the United States. There’s no need for us to see what happens to Hà the following year, or the year after that, or the year after that. Inside Out & Back Again beautifully presents the family’s traumas and triumphs of that singular experience. Lai leaves it to us, her readers, to imagine Hà’s future, rather than simply telling us everything that happens to her. That stand-alone novel, that no more-no less story, is enough.

This is exactly what I hope I’ve achieved with The Prince of Steel Pier. The main character, 13-year-old Joey Goodman, doesn’t cease to exist after the last page of the book. I’m sure he goes on to have more adventures and more experiences. But you’ll have to envision them for yourself. Joey’s story from two weeks in August of 1975 stands alone. His moments of happiness and moments of fear, his epiphanies and realizations, can only happen in that one special time in his life. Making my book into an endless series would take away from the power of what Joey learns about himself and his world in The Prince of Steel Pier.

I’m not calling for the abolishment of the long children’s book series. Not at all! Kids need to be able to rely on Percy Jackson getting himself into another mythological mess. They love the continuing escapades of Dogman and The Last Kids on Earth.

But here’s to the stand-alone book, the book that needs no sequels, no books #3-#10. Here’s to a story that thrills kids from its inciting incident all the way through its climax and denouement, and that’s it. Here’s to the books that have no more to say because they’ve said it all, perfectly, the first time around.

Some of my favorite stand-alone middle grade books:

The Magical Imperfect by Chris Baron
Where the Watermelons Grow by Cindy Baldwin
A Place to Hang the Moon by Kate Albus
Alone by Megan Freeman
Orphan Island by Laurel Snyder
Too Bright to See by Kyle Lukoff
When You Reach Me by Rebecca Stead
Red, White, and Whole by Rajani LaRocca
Some Kind of Happiness by Claire Legrand
One Jar of Magic by Corey Ann Haydu

The Prince of Steel Pier
Published September 1st, 2022 by Kar-Ben Publishing

About the Book:

Poor 13-year-old Joey Goodman is not suited for 1975 Atlantic City: he’s anxious, fearful, and prone to puking at any moment. On top of it all, his tight-knit Jewish family babies him more than they do his younger brother! With wanting to prove his mettle top of mind, Joey ends up working for kingpin Artie Bishop, whose gangsters are impressed by how Joey handles thieves who steal his prize tickets. Joey suddenly feels important as he runs around with Artie and his crew – but after a streak of deceiving his loved ones and dangerous jobs that put his family at risk, Joey’s resolve will be put to the test. This adventure-filled middle grade will have young readers relating to Joey as he goes through his fair share of feelings (like a crush!), goons, and finding that his place was with his real family all along.

Advance Praise for THE PRINCE OF STEEL PIER:

  • “What a wonderful book! I loved the sense of atmosphere, all the things that Joey struggles with, and most of all, that big, beautiful family.” —Rajani LaRocca, Newbery Honor-winning author of Red, White, and Whole 
  • “I love the funny voice of Joey/Joseph/Squirt Goodman. (Who wouldn’t fall for a Skeeball champion with a big heart and a nervous stomach?) I was captivated by Joey’s large lovable family and the authentic rendering of the 1970’s Atlantic City setting complete with gangsters, gangster’s daughters, lucky frog fountains, sinister business and mysterious packages. A fun read from start to finish.” —Gennifer Choldenko, Newbery Honor-winning author of the Alcatraz series
  • “The Prince of Steel Pier has everything a great book needs: an engaging main character, a blooming crush, page-turning adventure, and a loving, quirky family that owns a hotel on the delightfully nostalgic Atlantic City boardwalk. Oh, and don’t forget to throw in some just-short-of-too-scary gangsters and a huge helping of heart.” —Nora Raleigh Baskin, ALA Schneider Family Book Award–winning author of Anything But Typical

About the Author: Stacy Nockowitz is a middle school librarian and former language arts teacher with more than 25 years of experience in middle school education. Stacy received her BA from Brandeis University and holds Master’s Degrees from Columbia University Teachers College and Kent State University. She is also an MFA candidate in Writing for Children and Young Adults at Vermont College of Fine Arts. Stacy received a PJ Library Writer’s Incentive Award in 2020 for her debut novel THE PRINCE OF STEEL PIER, coming in September 2022 from Kar-Ben Publishing. An unrepentant Jersey Girl, Stacy still teases her hair and uses plenty of spray. When she’s not writing or matching great kids with great books, Stacy can most likely be found reading or rooting on her beloved Philadelphia Eagles. Her kids have flown the coop, so Stacy lives in central Ohio with her husband and their cat, Queen Esther. Find her on Twitter @snockowitz or at www.stacynockowitz.com

Thank you, Stacy, for sharing the joy in the standalone!

Author Guest Post: “How to Honor Your Roots” by Vanessa Garcia, Author of What The Bread Says: Baking with Love, History, and Papan

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“How to Honor Your Roots”

I come from a family whose roots are thick and wild. A family which was uprooted repeatedly; displaced over and over again. But the root itself – to homeland and history — never died. Instead, it flourished with mysteries and new blooms alike.

Somehow, my grandparents managed to salvage and plant our family’s displaced Cuban roots on American soil. My mother nourished them, and they grew. It’s my job, as the daughter of refugees, to water them, watch them grow deeper and higher still. Writing is the way I till and water.

A little bit of background.

My grandfather was born in Spain and escaped three tyrannies. He escaped Franco during the Spanish Civil War, by crossing the Pyrenes Mountains on foot with his brother, Pedro. He was 13-years-old. Once in France, he and Pedro became foster kids. Then, WWII hit, and he and Pedro had to escape Hitler. They escaped on a ship with Jewish kids, fleeing for their life, the same ship Vladimir Nabokov would take just a month or so later.

The ship was headed to Ellis Island.

After stepping foot on Ellis Island, however, Pedro and Papan, which is what I call my grandfather, did not stay in the U.S. Papan and his brother told Ellis Island officials that they were from Cuba, because they were afraid to be sent back to war-torn Spain. So, instead, the brothers were shipped off to Cuba, where they built a new life. It was a spectacular life. Pedro and my grandfather made families, my grandfather married my Cuban grandmother; they had my mother and aunt. And then…Fidel Castro.

Fidel Castro came to power, and it was time to escape again, from yet another tyranny – this time to Miami. My grandfather fled with my mom, aunt, and grandmother, almost losing his life in the process. Pedro was not so lucky — he was caught and imprisoned, politically, for almost a decade. After Pedro was released from prison, he didn’t speak to anyone for about a year because of the torture he’d suffered under the Castro regime.

These are the kinds of stories so many people I know live with as part of who they are, and the legacies they carry; stories we cannot forget. This is why I write about my grandfather.

What the Bread Says is my first book-form homage to him. It’s a picture book that carries a lot, but is also simple at the same time. It’s the story of how, when I was a kid, my grandfather taught me to bake bread while telling me the family story.

I hope it inspires many other kids and families to collect their own family stories. I hope it inspires parents to tell oral histories and kids to ask questions. I hope it inspires families to record and archive these stories. These are the stories that make us up, not just as individuals, but as a collective. A forest.

History is within us. And sometimes it feels so big, we don’t know where to start. My advice? Grab your phone and place it next to your grandmother, mother, great grandfather. Whoever is around – the people that carried and watered the roots of your family until now. Because now it’s YOU! It’s your turn.

Press record and ask them to tell you the story of their life. Tell them to start from the beginning. Give them an example: “I was born in _____ on ______ day in the year _______….” And let them take it from there.

That’s what I did.

I let them take it, and my elders took me on a journey. I did this to both my grandparents. The first time, I went home and listened to the recordings. Then, I transcribed them. After this, questions arose. I went back. I asked these and other questions, asked them to fill in the blanks. They couldn’t remember all of it – my grandfather was 98 when he died, that’s almost a century of knowledge and experience. When he couldn’t remember, I asked those around him. I did research. Apart from all the bread-making sessions, which were unrecorded, of course, I began to record them when I was a teenager and later as an adult. I am still gathering their story, even beyond my grandfather’s death.

Our humanity is a puzzle – a map that’s partially uncharted, partially hidden, partially in sight. Our old people carry the key, and our young have the energy to use it. Together, we unlock the map and make the future.

What The Bread Says: Baking with Love, History, and Papan
Published October 1st, 2022 by Cardinal Rule Press

About the Book: Join Papan and Vanessa on a baking adventure from the bumpy Pyrenees Mountains into fancy Paris and to the tropical island of Cuba, kneading and dancing, singing, and telling stories all the way.

In every piece of bread, there’s a story, here is ours. What’s yours? Put on your apron and get ready to bake some delicious bread while you travel from Spain to France to Cuba and back again — all before the kitchen timer dings. Let Papan be your guide!

Book Trailer:

About the Author: Vanessa Garcia is a multidisciplinary writer and creator working as a screenwriter, novelist, playwright, and journalist. She has written for Sesame Street, Caillou, and is a consultant on Dora the Explorer. Her debut novel, White Light, was published in 2015, to critical acclaim. Named one of the Best Books of 2015 by NPR, it also won an International Latino Book Award. She holds a PhD from the University of California Irvine in English (with a focus in Creative Nonfiction), an MFA from the University of Miami (in fiction), and a BA from Barnard College, Columbia University (English and Art History). Her autobiographical radio play, Ich Bin Ein Berliner about the fall of the Berlin Wall and her relationship to Cuba, premiered in April of 2021. You can learn more at http://www.vanessagarcia.org/.

Thank you, Vanessa, for sharing your inspiration and history!

Author Guest Post: “Finding ‘HOME’ in Poetry” by Dianne White, Author of Look and Listen

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“FINDING ‘HOME’ in POETRY”

When I was growing up, my middle sister was the storyteller in our family. Her vivid imagination and ability to embellish details to suit the occasion came in handy whenever it was time to write. 

I was not that kind of storyteller. I did my assignments as asked, but never once did I think of myself as a writer.  It wouldn’t be until years later, towards the end grad school, when that changed. How? My professor complimented my writing. She’d admired the way I’d organized my thoughts and supported my opinions succinctly and thoroughly. Though it was a completely different kind of writing – preparation for the comprehensive exams – it was the boost I needed.

Strange, isn’t it? One sincere complement changed my relationship to writing. As soon I finished my advanced degree, I was ready for a new challenge, and I knew exactly what it would be: I wanted to write for children. 

My experiences in the classroom had already introduced me to hundreds of picture books. It was the late 80s, early 90s, a time when Whole Language was a buzz word and using “real books” to support reading and writing was common practice. I loved everything about this kind of teaching and discovered a new-found appreciation for the complexities and possibilities of picture books. 

Also at that time, as a bilingual educator in California, primary language instruction (Spanish, in my classroom) was the rule of the day. I loved that, too, but as a first-grade teacher responsible for helping kids learn to read, I was looking for more… 

I remembered a favorite record of Mother Goose rhymes that my sister and I had listened to as kids the week we were both sick in bed with the mumps. (No vaccines yet!)  I wondered – what was the Spanish version of those early childhood rhymes that I remembered so fondly?

That’s when I discovered poems and songs in Spanish: “Luna, Lunera/ Cascabelera/Cinco pollitos y una ternera.” 

I began to integrate more poetry – rhymes, songs, anthologies, and collections – into my classroom. We read oodles of children’s poetry in both English and Spanish, and we began to write it, too. The same lessons that inspired my students to write became inspiration for me. But it took a while to realize that my most true writing home – my querencia, as poet and teacher Georgia Heard speaks about in her book, WRITING TOWARD HOME – is poetry.

So that’s my invitation to teachers. Bring poetry into the classroom. Perhaps your students will find their home there, too. 

Here are 3 ways to do that:

  1. Start with something familiar. School. Someone special –a grandparent? A friend? A pet? Or something as ordinary as the coming and going of a rainstorm, the inspiration for my first book, BLUE on BLUE.

    Brainstorm a long list of words related to the topic. Nouns. Strong verbs. Phrases. Colors. Include words that address the senses. Think image and sound, taste and touch. Kids don’t need to be overly fussy. Nor do they need to rhyme. Let them play with words, moving them around, breaking the lines, and experimenting with the shapes of their poems. This is poetry exploration at its best. Let them have fun creating!

  2. Pick a subject you’re studying in class or a discovery the children have made. I remember one morning, as the bell rang and the kids lined up, a child spotted a praying mantis waiting for us beside the classroom door. We picked her up and placed her in a container, poked some holes in the lid, and settled ourselves in a big circle to share our discovery. This would become our writing workshop for the day.

    We observed, noticed, asked questions. I pulled up a photo of a praying mantis on the smart board and we looked closer, noting the three body parts, the mandible, the spines on the front legs. We used our imaginations. What did this photo remind us of? An alien? A warrior? A conductor? Then, we wrote, starting with an image and a simile: “Like a conductor, the praying mantis raises her baton…”

  3. Write a riddle, as I do in my latest book, LOOK and LISTEN: Who’s in the Garden, Meadow, Brook?, illustrated by Amy Schimler-Safford. Have each student choose an animal and then describe it in the form of a question. Feel free to use the structure of the first riddle in the book as a poetry frame (example below). Don’t insist on rhyme but do let kids experiment. And while you’re at it? Why not have them draw an imaginary animal and describe it! They can choose a SOUND their creature makes and a made-up (rhyming) NAME for the last line.

    One of the best parts of writing workshop is sharing new work with an audience. Short on time? Do a version of “popcorn reading” – one student reads a line from their poem, pauses, makes eye contact with another student, who then reads a line, and so on. Although this takes a little practice, once kids get the hang of this version of “shared reading”, it’s a nice, centering way to close out the day.

Happy Poetry Writing! 

Look and Listen: Who’s in the Garden, Meadow, Brook?
Author: Dianne White
Illustrator: Amy Schimler-Safford
Published June 14th, 2022 by Margaret Ferguson Books

About the Book: A guessing game in a book that celebrates the curiosity and delight of a jaunt through a garden, meadow, and alongside a brook.

A child steps outside and strolls along, taking in the sights and sounds of nature. Rhythmic, rhyming text tracks his journey through a garden, meadow, and next to a brook, introducing a new color and animal found in that ecosystem with every turn of the page, transforming an ordinary walk into a feast for the senses.

Complete with material that explains the rich variety of wildlife and natural habitats found in the book, author Dianne White’s playful text is paired with the vibrant collage artwork of Amy Schimler-Safford, making for an exciting read-aloud and guessing game for budding nature lovers. 

About the Author: Dianne White is the award-winning author of numerous children’s picture books, including Blue Blue, Green on Green, and Who Eats Orange? As a teacher who was privileged to share her love of books and poetry with many students over many years, she now has the pleasure of  writing full-time. Most days, she strolls the neighborhood and fields near her home in sunny Arizona, looking and listening for buzzing bees, hopping bunnies and croaking frogs. Visit her at diannewrites.com.

Thank you, Dianne, for helping bring poetry into the classroom!

Author Guest Post: “Why I Write Science Books for Children” by Mary Batten, Author of Life in Hot Water: Wildlife at the Bottom of the Ocean

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“Why I Write Science Books for Children”

One day some years ago when I was writing scripts for the Children’s Television Workshop science series 3-2-1 Contact, I took my four-year-old daughter to my office and introduced her to the show’s actors. Afterwards, she looked at me and said, “I didn’t know they were real.” I was astounded. She had learned from watching Sesame Street and the show I was working on–the only TV shows we allowed her to watch–that what you see on TV is pretend. Big Bird, Cookie Monster and the other muppets were imaginary characters. Sesame Street was an imaginary street. My little daughter had learned the difference between fact and fiction.

From toddler age, children are fascinated by the real world. I consider them budding field biologists. They pick up the tiniest pieces of their environment–a pebble, a shell, a feather, a blade of grass–and excitedly present it to their parent or caretaker. As soon as they can, they repeatedly ask “Why?” About everything! These questions are the beginning of scientific curiosity. And it is my hope that my books tap into and nourish that curiosity.

By third grade, most children have learned about the two literary genres, fiction and nonfiction. The books I write are nonfiction–science, nature. When people ask me why I write nonfiction, I have two answers: First, I am fascinated and excited by the complex interrelationships among animals, plants, microbes, soil, sun and water that hold ecosystems together. Secondly, what goes on in nature is more fantastic, more bizarre than anything science fiction writers have imagined. Sex-changing fishes, flowers that use trickery to attract pollinators, insects that look like leaves and sticks, symbiotic partnerships between totally different species, and creatures that live in water hot enough to melt lead–these and many more are all real!

My newest book, Life in Hot Water: Wildlife at the Bottom of the Ocean, is about animals that live in the hottest, most extreme environment on Earth–hydrothermal vents. It is the second book in a series I created called “Life in the Extreme,” about the incredible ability of living things to evolve and take up residence in nooks and crannies of the most extreme environments. Discovery of hydrothermal vents in 1977 is one of the greatest adventures in science. 

Hydrothermal vents are underwater hot springs that form along the mid-ocean ridge, the longest mountain range on Earth. You can’t see it because it’s at the bottom of the sea. There it snakes more than 40,000 miles (65,000 kilometers) around the planet. When scientists first descended into this world, nobody expected to find any living thing. But the porthole of their tiny submarine revealed fish, clams, shrimp, crabs, and giant red-tipped tube worms never seen before. How could anything live amidst plumes of superhot, toxic liquid gushing from strange chimney-like structures?

Like toddlers who develop by asking questions, scientists also gather knowledge by asking questions and searching for answers. Questions open doors to discovery and the mind-blowing discovery of hydrothermal vents raised many questions. One of the most important was, “What are these creatures eating?”

Until vents were discovered, scientists thought that green plants and the sun were the base of all food chains–a process called photosynthesis. But no sunlight reaches the total darkness of the vent world miles below the ocean’s surface. And no green plants grow in this world. What then?

Following up these and other questions, scientists discovered an entirely new food chain–one that depends on energy from the Earth instead of energy from the sun. Amazingly, vent animals eat bacteria that feed on toxic chemicals such as hydrogen sulfide, which smells like rotten eggs, spewed from Earth’s interior by undersea volcanoes that create the vents. Scientists called this process chemosynthesis. Robert Ballard, the oceanographer who discovered where the sunken ship Titanic lay, called it “Probably one of the biggest biological discoveries ever made on Earth.”*

Textbooks had to be rewritten to include chemosynthesis as well as photosynthesis. Today research to learn more about hydrothermal vents is going on all over the world.

For me, one of the joys of writing nonfiction is reaching out to scientists who are doing the real work and interviewing them. One of the scientists whom I consulted for this book, Dr. Janet Voight, Associate Curator at the Field Museum in Chicago, said, “There’s so much about the deep sea that we haven’t even begun to explore. It’s all discovery, and that makes it exciting.”

Children are natural born explorers. Tapping into their questions is one of the most exciting and productive ways to foster children’s developmental curiosity, engage them in the basic scientific process, and encourage them to write their own nonfiction. Children’s science books, such as Life in Hot Water, can be used to create multi-disciplinary units engaging biology, geography, art, and creative writing. 

*Bill Nye discusses discovery of hydrothermal vents with Robert Ballard: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D69hGvCsWgA

Published June 21, 2022 by Peachtree

About the Book: .A dramatic overview of the deep-sea extremophiles that thrive in scalding water and permanent darkness at the bottom of the ocean

The scalding-hot water gushing from vents at the bottom of the ocean is one of the most extreme environments on Earth. Yet over millions of years, many organisms—from chemical-eating bacteria to eyeless crabs and iron-shelled snails—have evolved in amazing ways that enable them to thrive in this unlikely habitat. Scientists are hard at work to learn more about the complex ecosystems of the ocean depths.

Award-winning science writer Mary Batten and NYT best-selling illustrator Thomas Gonzalez, the masterful duo that created Life in a Frozen World, team up again in this impressive overview of hydrothermal ocean vents. Her clear, informative text coupled with his unique and eerily realistic paintings of sights never seen on land—gushing “black smokers,” ghostly blind shrimp, red-plumed tube worms—will entice readers to learn more about this once-hidden world at the bottom of the sea.

About the Author: Mary Batten is an award-winning writer for television, film and publishing. Her many writing projects have taken her into tropical rainforests, astronomical observatories, and scientific laboratories. She scripted some 50 television documentaries, was nominated for an Emmy, and is the author of many children’s science books, including Aliens From Earth, and Life in a Frozen World: Wildlife of Antarctica. Her most recent book is Life in Hot Water: Wildlife at the Bottom of the Ocean.

Thank you, Sara at Holiday House, for connecting us with Mary!