Author – Page 19 – Unleashing Readers

Author Guest Post: “Why Isn’t There More Science Fiction for Young Children?” by Emily Midkiff, Author of Equipping Space Cadets: Primary Science Fiction for Young Children

April 24, 2022April 24, 2022 by Kellee

“Why Isn’t There More Science Fiction for Young Children?”

Science fiction shapes how we respond to our technology-infused world. Research has shown that the more science fiction you’re exposed to, the more you are likely to critically think through the benefits and consequences of science. Many scientists and engineers have reported that reading science fiction as a child influenced the way they thought about science as a young person, potentially leading to their careers! Science fiction is also great practice for developing higher-order reading skills like inferencing, since futuristic worlds often have their own rules that the reader must figure out through clues and background knowledge.

However, very little attention is given to science fiction books for young readers, or what I call “primary science fiction.” It’s not included in most reading lists or school curriculum until high school. In Encountering Enchantment: A Guide to Speculative Fiction for Teens, Susan Fichtelberg recommends 12 years old as the best time to introduce science fiction. This age is a popular choice. The science fiction entries in the Oxford Encyclopedia of Children’s Literature and Keywords for Children’s Literature both cite age 12 as the time when most kids will discover and enjoy science fiction.

Why 12-year-olds, specifically? Back in 1762, a philosopher named Jean-Jacques Rousseau theorized that children really only reached “the age of reason,” as he called it, at age 12. Before then, he thought, they just didn’t have the capacity to really understand anything. He even advised that reading could wait until age 12! We’ve dismissed most of his theories, but some of it still sticks around, like the “age of reason” being 12. Even when we’re not consciously thinking about the “the age of reason,” that sentiment lives on when we assume that science fiction—and all of its complex thinking about science—is better for older readers.

Adults perpetuate a self-fulfilling prophecy about what children want, and this results in a low supply of primary science fiction books. Jon Scieszka once told me that his editors tried to convince him that children would be put off by the science in his science fiction series, Frank Einstein. An indie publisher told me that children’s science fiction doesn’t sell well, so they don’t acquire it often.

In order to test the idea that science fiction is less suitable for younger readers, I conducted a large study of primary science fiction and those results are published in my new book Equipping Space Cadets: Primary Science Fiction for Young Children. I counted over 120,000 books in elementary school libraries in almost every region of the US and found that science fiction books only make up around 3% of each library collection. I surveyed teachers and librarians and learned that they recommend science fiction to the occasional individual reader, but don’t pick it for lessons or storytime because they feel it is too scarce and too hard.

However, real children and books tell a different story! Even though only 3% of those library collections were science fiction books, I found that science fiction had more average check-outs per book than any other genre. When I read science fiction picturebooks with elementary students, I listened to them cleverly apply their reading skills to comprehend and engage with the genre’s questions about science. I read 357 primary science fiction books and found that the best ones included features to help even the youngest readers figure out the genre. It turns out that readers are well-suited for science fiction long before they turn twelve.

Now all that’s left is for us adults to begin to break the cycle of assumptions about science fiction. Buy it! Teach it! Share it!

Published April, 2022 by University Press of Mississippi

About the Book: Equipping Space Cadets: Primary Science Fiction for Young Children argues for the benefits and potential of “primary science fiction,” or science fiction for children under twelve years old. Science fiction for children is often disregarded due to common misconceptions of childhood. When children are culturally portrayed as natural and simple, they seem like a poor audience for the complex scientific questions brought up by the best science fiction. The books and the children who read them tell another story.

Using three empirical studies and over 350 children’s books including If I Had a Robot Dog, Bugs in Space, and Commander Toad in Space, Equipping Space Cadets presents interdisciplinary evidence that science fiction and children are compatible after all. Primary science fiction literature includes many high-quality books that cleverly utilize the features of children’s literature formats in order to fit large science fiction questions into small packages. In the best of these books, authors make science fiction questions accessible and relevant to children of various reading levels and from diverse backgrounds and identities.

Equipping Space Cadets does not stop with literary analysis, but also presents the voices of real children and practitioners. The book features three studies: a survey of teachers and librarians, quantitative analysis of lending records from school libraries across the United States, and coded read-aloud sessions with elementary school students. The results reveal how children are interested in and capable of reading science fiction, but it is the adults, including the most well-intentioned librarians and teachers, who hinder children’s engagement with the genre due to their own preconceptions about the genre and children.

Equipping Space Cadets: Primary Science Fiction for Young Readers is available from all major retailers.

About the Author: Emily Midkiff teaches children’s literature and literacy at the University of North Dakota. She spent nine years performing fantasy stories alongside children for an improv children’s theater group, and she now studies children’s fantasy and science fiction stories with attention to what the children themselves have to say. Find out more about her at https://emidkiff.wordpress.com/

Thank you, Emily, for this wonderful post! This is a question we’ve often asked, so loved hearing your thoughts.

Author Guest Post: “There’s No Wrong Way” by Adam Lehrhaupt, Author of There Was a Hole

April 10, 2022 by Kellee

“There’s No Wrong Way”

At it’s heart, There Was a Hole is a book about loss and helping readers learn a way to manage the complex emotions that come with it. These emotions can be BIG, scary, uncontrollable, and even unwanted. But that doesn’t mean they don’t exist. And it definitely doesn’t mean they should be ignored.

Everyone experiences loss in their lives. Even children’s book authors. Several years ago, I went through my own time of loss. As an author, my natural inclination in times like that is to look for books that deal with what I’m experiencing. Unfortunately, sometimes you just can’t find a book that lines up. When that happens, a good author takes matters in their own hands. They ask themselves; can I write a story that acknowledges the feelings I have. That shows they are valid, normal feelings everyone has? And most importantly, that there are things you can do to help yourself feel better?

It turns out that you don’t have to be a children’s book author to do this. Anyone can write a story for themselves. And the cool thing about writing for yourself, is that YOU get to choose what you write about. My path to writing this book is a long and winding one, but I’m going to lay out a few things that should help you write your own. Hopefully, writing your own story about loss, or fear, or whatever, helps you better understand how you are feeling and might even start you down the path of recovery.

First, and most important, there’s NO WRONG WAY to write a story for yourself. Writing the story doesn’t commit you to letting anyone read it. Remember, this exercise is for you and you alone. When, and to whom, you show your work is completely at your discretion. That said, here’s the steps I take when writing for myself.

Come up with a great character name.
We’re going to put this character through the ringer. It’s probably best not to give them your name. you don’t want to run yourself through the events we’re going to plan below. Pick a different name. Something cool. Something unique. Something fun to write about. Maybe Cleo, or Duke, or Ephemeralia. Any name you want.
Decide what the big event should be.
The main plot of our story will hinge on what this event is. It should be something extremely important to our main character. The bigger the event is to them the better. Maybe Cleo is a skiing champion who moves to a town with no snow. Or Duke’s pet gerbil passes away. Perhaps Ephemeralia has to start at a new school…with none of her best friends. These might not be huge issues to me, or even you, but they are MASSIVE for Cleo, Duke and Ephemeralia.
Pick three bad things that our main character can do in response to this event.
This is where the fun begins. What terrible, horrible actions can our main character take because of what happened to them? Do they yell? Do they scream? Are they scared to meet new people? Can they break something accidentally? Pick something you think might be scary, or would get you into A LOT of trouble. Once you have three, or more, put them in order from least bad, to most horrible.
Think of something our character can do to atone for their actions.
Sure, we’re talking about causing all kinds of trouble, but that doesn’t mean our character can get away with their behavior. In fact, until they acknowledge their actions, they will never be able to recover from the effects of the original event. So, how do they overcome, or at least address, the mess they’ve become making? They don’t need to make everything better, but it would help if they start down the path.
Find a good place to sit and start writing.
Now’s the moment we’ve been waiting for…writing. Don’t worry about making it perfect, or even good. Just get words down on paper. There’s plenty of time to revise and edit later. If that’s what you want. Remember, this is a story just for us. The key thing is to get it out. To write it. Once that’s done, you’ll already be on the path to recovery. The next steps are up to you.

Published March 15th, 2022 by Sleeping Bear Press

About the Book: Lily has a hole. It eats her joy, makes her angry, and–no matter what Daddy does to try to help–it just keeps growing. So Lily retreats. But a friend lets her in on a secret (he has a hole too!) and shows her the best way to repair holes: spend time on friends, family, the things you love, yourself, and kindness. Those patches don’t make the hole go away, but they help. A lyrical and age-appropriate story for learning to cope with grief and loss.

About the Author: Adam Lehrhaupt is the award-winning author of more than a dozen books for children, including Warning: Do Not Open This Book!, Chicken in Space, I Will Not Eat You, Wordplay, This is a Good Story, and Sloth Went. He has traveled to six continents, performed on Broadway, and lived on a communal farm. He currently lives in the suburbs of Philadelphia, PA, with his wife and two sons. Follow Adam on Twitter and Instagram @Lehrhaupt, Facebook @adamlehrhaupt, and at adamlehrhaupt.com

Thank you, Adam, for this great guidance for writers!

Author Guest Post: “Why are we learning about maps in English class? (and other just questions)” by Michael D. Beil, Author of The Swallowtail Legacy: Wreck at Ada’s Reef

February 27, 2022 by Kellee

“Why are we learning about maps in English class? (and other just questions)”

I know that I’m the minority here, but in my humble opinion, civilization as we know it began its final descent when swarms of satellites filled the sky and GPS replaced the paper maps that used to fill our glove compartments. In my teaching days, I was mildly concerned when more and more of my students (high school freshmen) were unable to tell time on the analog clock on my classroom wall. But when I realized that many of them had no idea of how to read a map, I was absolutely horrified. What would happen, I asked, if the power went out, or the satellites crashed, or hackers changed all of the street names?

I’ve been accused of being a bit of a Luddite, but that’s not really it. It’s not that I fear technology, it’s just that I love maps. And literary maps—usually found printed on a book’s endpapers—well, those are the best. Whether it’s Milo on the road from Dictionopolis to Digitopolis, or Frodo and Sam crossing the Dead Marshes, the voyage of the Goblin in We Didn’t Mean to Go to Sea, or David Balfour wandering across Scotland in Kidnapped, there’s not much that I enjoy more than tracing characters’ paths across a map found in a favorite novel.

One of my favorite parts of writing The Swallowtail Legacy 1: Wreck at Ada’s Reef was drawing and redrawing the map of Swallowtail Island. The book starts off with the protagonist and her family arriving by ferry at the island, which is in western Lake Erie. It’s fictional, a composite of some islands that I’ve gotten to know over the years: Put-in-Bay, Mackinac, Nantucket, Carleton, Harker’s, and more. For instance, I’ve always loved the “no cars” aspect of Mackinac Island, so I made that part of Swallowtail (although golf carts are allowed).

The map of the island grew out of necessity; as I was writing, I needed to be able to see the buoy at Ada’s Reef where the fatal accident occurred so long ago. And when Lark and Pip ride their bikes out to Rabbit Ear Point at night to see if the light on the buoy is visible from Dinah Purdy’s porch (possibly a key piece of evidence in the case), I want readers to follow along on the map, to see the buoy for themselves, in a sense. I don’t have an Excel spreadsheet full of data to prove it, but I firmly believe that the kind of kid who does refer to the map is going to remember more details.

If you choose a book for a classroom read that has a map, I suggest creating a bulletin-board-size copy of the map (The easiest way to do it is to project it onto a big sheet of paper and trace it; get students to help transfer the details that you want to include.) Whenever I taught The Fellowship of the Ring, I had a big version of the map on a bulletin board and used different colored push pins to mark the progress of the members of the Fellowship—much more effective than having students trying to figure out where they were on the four part map that’s included in the book.

As an English teacher, one of my goals was to help my students be more careful readers. (I’m hardly alone here; there are more strategies for close reading than there are teachers, I think.) My own experience tells me that even kids who are good readers don’t always read very carefully. The classic short story, Richard Connell’s “The Most Dangerous Game,” which appears in lot of high school English textbooks (and is now in the public domain) provides the basis for one of my favorite assignments: draw a map of Shiptrap Island that shows where all of the key plot events occur. (A caveat: I’m not the only teacher to think of this, and student-created maps of the island can be found online.) The assignment works best as an in-class group project, with each group having to justify their decisions using the text for support.

Other times, when students were writing narrative essays about their neighborhood (inspired by Charles Dickens’s “sketches” of London life), they had to include a hand drawn map of their neighborhood with key locations from the essay indicated and captioned. It’s a great opportunity for artistic students, and those with an eye for detail, to shine, and, as an added bonus, the visual aids made grading the papers loads more interesting for me!

Published February 15, 2022 by Pixel + Ink

About the Book: In a time not long after the fifth extinction event, Edgar Award-nominated author Michael D. Beil came of age on the shores of Pymatuning Lake, where the ducks walk on the fish. (Look it up. Seriously.) He is the author of the Red Blazer Girls series, Summer at Forsaken Lake, Lantern Sam and the Blue Streak Bandits, and Agents of the Glass: A New Recruit. For reasons that can’t be disclosed until September 28, 2041, he now lives somewhere in Portugal with his wife and their two white cats, Bruno and Maisie. He still gets carsick if he has to ride in the back seat for long and feels a little guilty that he doesn’t keep a journal. For more on the author and his books, visit him online atMichaelDBeil.com.

About the Author: In a time not long after the fifth extinction event, Edgar Award-nominated author Michael D. Beil came of age on the shores of Pymatuning Lake, where the ducks walk on the fish. (Look it up. Seriously.) He is the author of the Red Blazer Girls series, Summer at Forsaken Lake, Lantern Sam and the Blue Streak Bandits, and Agents of the Glass: A New Recruit. For reasons that can’t be disclosed until September 28, 2041, he now lives somewhere in Portugal with his wife and their two white cats, Bruno and Maisie. He still gets carsick if he has to ride in the back seat for long and feels a little guilty that he doesn’t keep a journal. For more on the author and his books, visit him online atMichaelDBeil.com.

Thank you, Michael, for your guest post!

Author Guest Post: “The Hidden Value of Reading ‘Above Level’” by Julie Mathison, Author of Elena the Brave

February 13, 2022February 13, 2022 by Kellee

“The Hidden Value of Reading ‘Above Level’”

Here in the information age, we love our boxes. I recently read an interesting post on Unleashing Readers entitled “This is my Anti-Lexile, Anti-Reading Levels Post.” I’m not an educator: I’m a former child-reader, a parent of two reading teens, and an author of middle grade and young adult novels. I didn’t know about Lexile numbers until I read this post, but I agree with the author’s perspective on it. Here’s why.

I came of age reading “old fashioned” children’s books – Heidi, The Hobbit, A Wrinkle in Time, Little Women, The Borrowers, Anne of Green Gables. The list goes on and on. These books contain complex vocabulary and diction. They take their time; they’re not concerned with “grabbing eyeballs.” And accordingly, I sank into these books, dwelt there, and I absorbed the complexity without even knowing it.

Take The Hobbit, for instance. I first read it during elementary school, then again as a teenager, then a few times as an adult, and at each age, the book enchanted, engaged and delighted me. Most likely, there were words I didn’t know when I first read it as a child, and some of the complex diction might have lost me, but did that make any difference to my experience? No. I was swept away from the first word, lost in a world of magical creatures. I remember the trolls! Gollum, deep under the mountain by his subterranean lake! I was there, living this book, and I have the memories to prove it. The intimacy of that experience is its own reward, but I’m also convinced that these complex books developed my imagination, my thinking, and my capacities in ways that are impossible to measure.

To the extent that the Lexile rating system embraces the educational value of linguistic complexity for the developing mind, I wholeheartedly agree. But the dangers are apparent. When readers are discouraged from reading “above level,” even if that is not the system’s intent, they miss out on the myriad of ways in which encountering language beyond our ken stretches us. When a child is captivated by a book that is “above level,” that complexity engages their faculties unconsciously, effortlessly. Interest drives one beyond one’s perceived boundaries. A child reads for love and gains the educational benefits anecdotally.

But then, I’m a curmudgeon of the analog age, a dinosaur, doomed to live on beyond my time. I noted, in a peripheral fashion, the rise of assessment in education during the 90’s—a rise that perfectly coincided with that in most other sectors. My husband’s corporate job devolved into a mind-numbing “capturing” of information as middle managers sought to compare like with like. Widgets. What was once “consulting” became “information-gathering.” That’s hard enough to see in the adult sphere, but when it becomes the defining context of the education of our children, it’s heart-breaking.

Ricki and Kellee got it spot on in quoting Teri Lesesne’s Reading Ladders in their Anti-Lexile Post: “rigor should be determined by sophistication of thought, depth of character development, stylistic choices, and mastery of language on the part of the author.” And I cannot say it any better than the author of that post when she counsels that the best way to guide young readers is to read, read, read.

Let’s bring back intuition! Creativity. Personal judgement. Let’s empower teachers to do what they already do – teach real, live, individual children. I’d even welcome a few of the pitfalls that inevitably result from empowering discretion. The attempt to quantify the qualitative has always been, to my mind, a doomed expedition, fraught with danger. Enthralled with the map, we forget the territory and lose our way. I would love to see our children’s libraries stuffed to the ceiling with enchanting, enthralling “above-reading-level” tomes, and children empowered do just what I did – bring home armloads of books, lay them out on the floor, and decide which world to enter first. Because no imagination can be captured by a metric.

Old Rus #2
Publishing March 1st, 2022 by Starr Creek Press

About the Book: From award-winning indie author Julie Mathison comes the sequel to BookLife Semifinalist VASILISA.

Old Rus, a land of witches and ogres, bogatyr warriors and six-headed dragons, magic and myth. A land lurking below the waking world, a fabled land – except for the chosen few.

It’s 1942, and the world is at war. Elena Petrovna Volkonsky is just a schoolgirl in a Pennsylvania steel town, the Russia of her forebears long forgotten – except in tales, sung by her babka in haunting tones. Elena can picture Old Rus clearly as she ponders her pet rock, its surface black and smooth, but its depths strange. Such visions! The snow-swollen Dnepr, wending southward through the wild steppe all the way to Byzantium. Vladimir of the Bright sun, ruling from glorious Kiev!. If only it were real. If only hers was not just an ordinary family in trying times. An ordinary family – with an extraordinary destiny.

Be careful what you wish for.

Meanwhile, Old Rus is in crisis. A dragon flies, a maiden is captured, and the great bogatyr, Dobrynya, is tasked with her rescue. But his son, Mitya, senses treachery on all sides. How can you save a man who will not save himself? And must he venture alone, trailing his father across the steppe where warring nomads range, even to the distant peaks of the Sorochinsk Mountains? He is prepared to do just that when a strange girl appears in the prince’s stables and upends all his plans.

What happens when two worlds – and hearts – collide?

About the Author: Julie Mathison is the founder of Starr Creek Press and the award-winning author of books for young people that seek to delight, transport and inspire the child inside every reader. Her debut novel, Believe, won the 2021 Eric Hoffer Book Award for best middle reader and First Horizon Award for debut books. Vasilisa, Book One in her Old Rus series, was a 2021 BookLife Prize Semifinalist. She lives in the Pacific Northwest with her husband, two teenage children, six sheep, four goats, one dog, and more chickens than you can shake a stick at (literally, she has tried). Visit her at https://www.juliemathison.com.

Thank you, Julie, for this addition to our Anti-Reading Level post! It was great to have another point of view.

Author Guest Post: “Parent – Educator Partnership” by Punam V. Saxena, Author of Parent Power: Navigating School and Beyond

April 22, 2023January 30, 2022 by Kellee

“Parent – Educator Partnership”

Parent Power: Navigate School and Beyond strives to normalize parenting. Every day is different presenting its own unique rewards and challenges. We often feel like we are on a merry-go-round and cannot seem to change the mundaneness of our routines.

I felt the same way while raising my four children, I often wondered whether I was doing a good job. Often, it felt like I was “winging it” and was hoping for the best. As a former educator and then stay-in-the-car-mom (I was never at home!) for more than 20 years, it was intuitive for me to build relationships with those who interacted with my children: teachers, administrators, and coaches. I assumed that’s what we, as parents, were supposed to do. We each learned from each other, and I soon became a trusted partner at the school and district levels where we made systemic changes for our children county-wide.

Educators are at a tipping point. They have the monumental task of ensuring our students receive the education they deserve while juggling the ever-changing pandemic world of schools opening, virtual learning, or even going hybrid. It has become almost comical at what is expected and what is reasonable.

Wouldn’t it be nice for educators to have a resource that has insight and expertise in the student’s physical and mental well-being? Someone who we can partner with to help the student where they currently are academically and then help them reach their full potential?

Parents! They are our ticket to helping our students achieve the success they deserve. We need their input, their perspective of how the child learns, or if any happenings at home are affecting the student’s school performance. Their knowledge is critical to helping educators navigate learning in the manner that is most beneficial and impactful for the student.

In this uncertain time, teachers need, more than ever, parent input and guidance. We are counting on them to help us. But we also must realize the burden parents carry right now. It is imperative to create a symbiotic relationship between schools and parents for students to feel supported and achieve success.

In my debut book, Parent Power: Navigate School and Beyond, I share my insights on how an educator turned Parent Impact Coach built a relationship, became an advocate for schools and students, and helped create systemic changes at the school and district level that affected students and staff county-wide. My education background along with compassion and empathy catapulted me to the forefront of issues that impacted students long-term.

Published May 4, 2021

About the Book: Parent Power: Navigate School and Beyond strives to normalize parenting. Every day is different presenting its own unique rewards and challenges. We often feel like we are on a merry-go-round and cannot seem to change the mundaneness of our routines.

Parent Power offers insight, ideas, and methods to navigate this exhilarating, exhausting task – raising productive, compassionate, future generations. Tackling relevant topics that parents face, with a head-on approach to:

Social media
Sports
Discrimination
And many more

Each chapter ends with Punam’s Perspective, a personal anecdote that prompted the need to write the chapter. Those experiences shaped Punam as a parent and an advocate, and, eventually, on this journey to build a formidable team of parent, teacher, and school.

Mom’s Choice Awards, Gold Seal

Amazon #1 Release

Review
Reader’s Favorite, 5-Stars:

Parent and author Punam V. Saxena shares her experiences on becoming a partner in the educational process in Parent Power: Navigate School and Beyond. This invaluable work tells the tale of a stay-at-home mom who became passionate about enhancing students’ educational experience by getting involved in the academic community and forging a trusting relationship with faculty members. She addresses parenting issues related to self-care, community participation, social media control, bullying, discrimination, and quarantined parenting. The book aims to guide parents in raising emotionally intelligent kids by engaging them in dialogues that help them understand the value of diversity and justice as a concept of fairness. As parenting is a lifetime vocation, this work becomes a supportive teammate.

If you’re like most parents, you feel you’re doing a fine job in raising and dealing with your kids based on your child-rearing philosophy. You exhaust all the means to be a good provider. But at some point, it will drain you. One particular aspect that I enjoyed in Parent Power is Saxena’s take on self-care. Children can prove to be a handful, and as a parent, you too deserve tender loving care. Saxena writes with no promises but assures that it is feasible, at the very least, to decrease the frequency of your most challenging parenting days. I strongly recommend Parent Power to all parents for its inspirational and realistic approach to developing strategies to help parents become more centered and productive.

-Vincent Dublado

About the Author: Punam V. Saxena is a mother of four, holds a Bachelor’s degree in Psychology, and a Master’s in Education. Throughout her 30 years of experience between teaching and volunteering in her children’s schools, she implemented several procedures that benefited students and administrators within the school district.

She is a Parent Impact Coach, TEDx speaker, author of Parent Power: Navigate School and Beyond, and podcaster. Her work focuses on bridging the gap and fostering and stronger relationship between parents and schools by empowering parents to become partners in their child’s education.

Punam has been recognized as Volunteer of the Year at Harrison School for the Arts and has received a Key to the City in Lakeland, Florida. She has been featured in the magazines Podcast Movement, Shoutout Atlanta, Global Fluency, and Women Who Podcast. She has also spoken at several mainstage events including She Podcasts Live, Passionistas Project’s “I’m Speaking“ and Podcast Movement’s Virtual Summit. Additionally, Punam has been featured on NBC’s Atlanta & Company, CBS, ABC, and FOX.

In her spare time, she enjoys running, cooking, reading, and spending time with her family.

Link to website: www.edu-Me.net
Link to TEDx Ocala Talk: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DrY3dM-AvOg

Follow on social media here:
www.facebook.com/theedume
www.twitter.com/edume19
www.instagram.com/theedume
https://www.linkedin.com/in/punam-saxena-m-ed-7981b9124/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DrY3dM-AvOg

Thank you, Punam, for this post! We agree that parents need to support educators and the amazing work they are doing, more importantly now than ever. It is the partnership that is important; parents should not be telling educators what to do or micromanaging instruction or instructional materials, but instead working as a parent with their own children and with their schools to ensure success of students.

Author Guest Post and Educators’ Guide: I Am Today by Matt Forrest Esenwine, Illustrated by Patricia Pessoa

December 5, 2021November 14, 2021 by Kellee

“Non-grammatical doesn’t always mean wrong”

The year that shall live in infamy…

School was at home, play dates were via computer, vacation plans were stalled.

The pandemic shut-down was difficult for many people in many ways; however, as hard as it was for as adults to deal with, it was especially hard on kids, many of whom had no idea what was going on, or why. I felt like I needed to write something to empower kids, to help them realize they do have some control over certain things.

So in late summer of last year I began brainstorming ideas by doing something unusual. I made a concerted effort to come up with a non-grammatical title. A strange way to begin the writing process, but I thought a non-grammatical title might not only be poetic and thought-provoking but would certainly catch attention sitting on a bookshelf!

As I thought about it, the phrase “I am today” eventually popped into my head, and I loved it! Kids are always being told they are “the Future” – but what if a child doesn’t want to wait, to make a difference? The concept for my next picture book was born.

Non-grammatical doesn’t always mean “wrong”:

These days, it seems grammar police are everywhere; allow auto-correct to add an apostrophe to the word “its” in your social media post and suddenly a cute little possessive pronoun is the subject of derision and ridicule by everyone who reads it. And let’s not even get started on the “your” and “you’re” brigade!

No one appreciates proper grammar more than me. Certainly, it’s important to teach grammar, spelling, and such. Verb conjugations, parts of speech, sentence diagrams are all important and all have their place in education. But as someone who writes a lot of poetry, I would suggest that going out of one’s way to be non-grammatical on purpose might have some uses – and be quite fun.

You see, a phrase is only non-grammatical when there is no context, or it is used out of context. Take the title of my new picture book, “I Am Today.” How can a person be an adverb?? (Yes, “today” can also be a noun, but we’re not going to split hairs) On its own, the phrase “I am today” would not normally make sense – but once the story is read and we understand what the main character is thinking, it suddenly makes all the sense in the world.

We tell kids “they are the future” – which, to be honest, could be considered just as non-grammatical as “I am the future.” So if we are proud when children consider themselves to be “the future,” it’s not much of a stretch to understand why a child might want to be “today.”

Putting non-grammatical phrases to use…

Now that you (hopefully) understand my rationale for cheering on grammar that would make my high school English teacher Mrs. Jencks scream, here’s what I think is really cool: getting students to think creatively and/or poetically by deliberately creating non-grammatical phrases!

Think about it: why can’t phrases like “puddles of books” or “running the rainbow” or “soccer seriously” be legitimate springboards to something fantastic – a story, a poem, a song?

Many of us (your faithful guest poster, included) are always encouraging young people to come up with new ideas for writing, yes? Since essays, stories, homework assignments always need to be correct and proper, why not turn things on their head for a change and give kids a chance to do something totally different?

Encourage students to put together phrases that sound completely wrong, then have them write the story or poem that goes with it. Or better yet, put all their non-grammatical phrases together and draw them randomly so students need to write based on someone else’s phrase.

Phrases like those three I mentioned earlier, while possibly a bit odd-sounding, would all be perfectly at home in a poem. That’s what poets do, after all – coin phrases, turn words around, make unexpected connections.

Poets speak in terms that are new to their readers, using metaphors, similes, and comparisons that are thought-provoking and unforeseen. What better way to get students thinking in this way than by showing them the value of putting words together that everyone normally tells them not to do?

Knowing most middle school and high school students, they’ll seize any opportunity to do something they’re not supposed to do. So capitalize on that – and see what happens!

About the Author from the Author:

As a former radio broadcaster, I spent a good part of my life writing and producing commercials, comedy bits, and news stories. At various times I was also an event DJ, country dance instructor, news reporter, cook, telemarketer, ice cream scooper, and photography sales dude…and never figured out how to make a living doing any of it.

I also loved poetry – my first published poem was in 1984 when I was still in high school – and over the years I’ve had numerous adult-oriented poems published in various journals and anthologies including the Donald Hall tribute, “Except for Love (Encircle, 2019). In 2012 my poem, “Apple-Stealing” was nominated for a Pushcart Prize and in 2019 I was the recipient of the MacGregor Poetry Prize, coordinated by the Robert Frost Farm board of trustees and Derry (NH) Public Library.

Anyhoo…little did I know all this short-form writing would lead to my debut picture book, “Flashlight Night” (Boyds Mills & Kane, 2017), which received numerous positive reviews including a Kirkus star and was selected by the New York Public Library as one of the Best Books for Kids 2017. I now have a dozen books out or under contract, including “Once Upon Another Time” (Beaming Books, 2021), co-authored with my friend, Charles Ghigna (aka, Father Goose®).

Meanwhile, my children’s poetry can be found in anthologies like “The National Geographic Book of Nature Poetry” (National Geographic Children’s Books, 2015), “Night Wishes” (Eerdmans, 2020), and “Construction People” (Wordsong, 2020), the latter of which chosen by Kirkus as one of the Best Picture Books of the Year. Take a gander at all my books here.

Matt lives in New Hampshire with his wife, kids, and more pets than he has fingers, so don’t ask him to count.

Expected Publication November 30th, 2021 by POW! Kids Books

About the Book: A young girl realizes that she doesn’t have to wait until she’s grown-up to stand up for what is right and make a big impact.

While playing on the beach in her coastal town, a young girl comes across a sea turtle ensnared by a wire. Her town is home to a factory that has provided jobs for many of her neighbors, including her mother, but it has also been dumping garbage from a pipe into the waters, threatening the creatures that live in them.

Children are used to being asked what they’ll do and be when they grow up, but the girl knows there is so much she can do today to help. Unable to forget the sight of the struggling turtle, with a fantastic act she inspires the townspeople to compel the factory to change its destructive ways.

Written in spare and evocative poetry, I Am Today is an empowering story for children who want to be the change the world needs.

Teachers’ Tools for Navigation and Discussion Questions:

Please view and enjoy the educators’ guide for I Am Today

Flagged Passages:

Thank you, Matt, for this post to make us, as adults, think a little bit more out of the box!

Author Christina Diaz Gonzalez’s Visit to Kellee’s School

April 22, 2023October 31, 2021 by Kellee

Having authors visit my school will NEVER get old! It is such an amazing experience for my students (and me)!

For Christina Diaz Gonzalez’s visit, she was at our school for half a day (we were splitting with another middle school), but we were able to fit in 2 presentations and book signings during this time.

The first presentation was to our two-way dual language students, and Christina gave the presentation completely in Spanish! It was awesome to support the magnet program and literacy! For this presentation, she talked a bit more about Red Umbrella because my Spanish Honors teacher plans to teach the book.

The second presentation was to our Student Literacy Leaders, 7th grade Latinos in Action, Lunch Book Club members, and several students who signed up to fill in the last of the 75 available spots. This presentation was focused on promoting her newest book, Concealed, which we were able to give a copy to each student who attended! After the presentation, Christina signed each students book and chatted with each student.

It was a whirlwind of an visit, but it was wonderful! I highly recommend Christina Diaz Gonzalez for visits–she was engaging, interesting, and the students loved her! I asked my Student Literacy Leaders to reflect on the visit, and here are some of their responses:

I really liked the author and she seemed like a great person and learning about her secret dream of being an author and her becoming one was honestly really inspirational.
It was very inspirational! I also loved how passionate she seemed about writing and reading books.
My favorite part was when she was talking about her idea process and how she got the idea for Concealed.
I learned that being an author doesn’t mean you need to have your whole book planned out from chapter to chapter, as long as you have a start and finish, you could write a book.
I learned that anyone can be an author if they enjoy it.
The visit was important to me because I love meeting an author and seeing what they are like outside of what is written in their books.
The visit was important because she was a Latina author, and I haven’t met that many female authors of color.
The visit was important to me because it was a new experience for me when it comes to visiting authors and getting a little sneak peek of their life. I enjoyed every second of it and getting a signed book for free just seemed like a huge honor.
It was important because it was my first time meeting an author!
The visit was important to me because it gave me (alongside others) a chance to take things in from an author’s perspective; it really was refreshing to hear and gain a sense of.
I learned that even if there’s no motivation left is to always push through the matter/problem.