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

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“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

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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.

Christina Diaz Gonzalez’s Books

Concealed
Concealed

The Red Umbrella
The Red Umbrella

Moving Target (Moving Targe... Return Fire (Moving Target,...
Moving Target & Return Fire

A Thunderous Whisper
A Thunderous Whisper

Stormspeaker (Spirit Animal...
Stormspeaker

Hope Nation: YA Authors Sha...
Hope Nation

Thank you so much, Christina, for this wonderful visit!

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Author Guest Post: “Inviting Student Wonder in the Diversity of the World’s Languages” by Claudia Mills, Author of The Lost Language

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“Inviting Student Wonder in the Diversity of the World’s Languages”

When I was a child, I read my way through the Golden Book Encyclopedia. In the volume for E, I became entranced by the entry on Esperanto, a language created in the late 19th century to be a universal language that could be shared by speakers all over the world. How wonderful it would be, I thought, if everyone in the world could speak the same language! I was wild to find a way that I could start learning Esperanto myself.

As the years went by, however, I began to appreciate the amazing diversity of the world’s languages; I no longer valued the search for one single language everyone in the world could speak. When I learned that Earth’s treasury of languages was becoming increasingly endangered by the forces of globalization, I thought how I would have felt if I had known this as a child. Just as, decades ago, I had wanted to learn Esperanto to promote universal understanding, today I would have wanted to learn an endangered language, to save it from utter extinction. This was the seed from which my recent verse novel, The Lost Language, grew.

In the book, my protagonist’s mother is a linguistics professor who does field work to study endangered languages and document their vocabulary and grammar. When my protagonist, Betsy (AKA Bumble), tells her best friend, Lizard, about this, Lizard asks, “What if instead of WRITING about dying languages, like your mom, you and I SAVED one instead?” The girls choose the endangered language of Guernésiais, a distant cousin of French, spoken by just a few hundred remaining speakers on the Isle of Guernsey, in the English Channel between France and England. Lizard and Bumble decide that if they can learn Guernésiais, and teach it to other kids at their middle school, at least a few more people in the world will know this language and be able to speak at least a little bit of it. Of course, this is not how languages in the real world get saved, because language is inextricably tied up with a culture, and a people, and a place. My two characters learn this in the course of the story in a devastating way.

But I hope the book will inspire young readers to become interested in learning about the wealth of the world’s estimated 7000 languages, 40 percent of which are currently endangered through globalization, as young people choose to speak languages that allow them to participate more fully in life outside of their small communities. The website the girls use in The Lost Language is based on the Endangered Languages Project website (endangeredlanguages.com), which features a map of the world where students can click on different countries to learn which languages are endangered there. The website offers resources on how to learn some 3450 endangered languages.

Here are some questions to spark student discussion.

  • Do you think it would be a good thing if everybody in the world spoke the same language? Why or why not?
    • Possible answers for why this would be a good thing might include: it would be easier to understand people and avoid miscommunication, and so easier to work together for common goals. Possible answers for why it wouldn’t be a bad thing might include: it would be boring! Why would we want to have sameness instead of diversity?
  • Do you think there are any endangered languages in the United States? Which languages might be endangered here and why?
    • The Endangered Languages Project website reports 167 endangered languages in the USA, primarily Indigenous languages, lost through deliberate attempts to force assimilation of Indigenous people by extinguishing Indigenous culture, including both religion and language.
    • One reason to preserve languages is that each language has some words or expressions that convey something difficult to translate into any other language. For example, in German, there is the word schadenfreude, which means “pleasure in somebody else’s misfortune.” In Japanese, wabi-sabi means “finding beauty in imperfection.” The French verb flâner means “to wander aimlessly in a city.” Is there anything you think there should be a word for in English that isn’t a word now? Can you create a new word for it?
  • Which language or languages would you most like to learn? Why? Would it bother you if you had to stop speaking in your own language, the language you grew up with, and start speaking in a completely different language? Of course, learning a language is not easy! But even if you could learn the new language effortlessly, what do you think might be lost by speaking only the new language now?

Publishing October 12th, 2021 by Margaret Ferguson Books

About the Book: Betsy is the one who informs her best friend, Lizard, that thousands of the world’s languages are currently threatened by extinction; Betsy’s mother is a linguistics professor working frantically to study dying languages before they are lost forever. But it is Lizard who, gripped by the magnitude of this loss, challenges Betsy, “What if, instead of WRITING about dying languages, like your mom, you and I SAVED one instead?”

As the girls embark on their crusade to learn as much as possible of the near-extinct language of Guernésiais (spoken on the Isle of Guernsey, off the coast of France), their friendship faces unexpected strains. With Lizard increasingly obsessed with the language project, Betsy begins to seek greater independence from her controlling and charismatic friend, as well as from her controlling and charismatic mother. Then tragedy threatens Betsy’s life beyond what any words can express.

Written in verse, The Lost Language takes its characters on a quest both to save the words of a dying language and to find the words to save what may be a dying friendship.

About the Author: Claudia Mills has published over 60 books for young readers, including the middle-grade novels The Lost Language, Zero Tolerance, and Write This Down, and several chapter book series, most recently Franklin School Friends and After-School Superstars. Her books have been chosen as Junior Library Guild selections, named Notable Books of the Year by the American Library Association, translated into half a dozen languages, and nominated for dozens of state readers’ choice awards. She has written all her books between 5 and 7 in the morning while lying on the couch and drinking hot chocolate.

Thank you, Claudia, for this great conversation starter with students and for introducing us to your new book!

Author Guest Post: “Point-of-View Flip as a Way into Creative Writing” by Shirley Reva Vernick, Author of Ripped Away

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“Point-of-View Flip as a Way into Creative Writing”

I’m a big fan of the “point-of-view flip” activity for young writers. That’s where students are asked to retell an existing story (or scene or chapter) from a POV other than the one presented in the original. This exercise can be done with a short and simple tale like The Three Little Pigs (e.g., the wolf’s first-person POV) or with more advanced texts. I like this literary workout because, besides being just plain fun, it can help writers grow their skills. Here’s my thinking:

It’s hard to write creatively, from blank, on demand. That’s why I always hated assignments like, “Write a story from this week’s spelling words.” It’s why I’ve never gone to writers’ retreats, where I’d be put up for a random week not of my own choosing and expected to produce. I can no sooner schedule my creative juices than I can schedule the rain. I suspect that many students feel the same way.

With the POV flip exercise, students don’t have to pull characters or plots out of thin air. Those elements are already there, freeing students to focus on the craft of show-not-tell, dialogue, pacing, etc.

POV flipping shows writers how much hinges on POV when telling a story. After publishing four novels and several short stories, I’m more certain than ever that POV is among the most pivotal—and challenging—determinations to make in the writing process.

Take, for instance, my new upper-MG/early-YA novel, Ripped Away, which is set in Victorian London during the Jack the Ripper spree. I wrote my first draft in the third-person perspective of a boy growing up in London during that time. Something wasn’t right though. This POV didn’t feel immediate enough, intimate enough. So I rewrote the book in the first-person POV of that same character. It was an improvement, but I still wasn’t satisfied. Something was missing.

Eventually, I understood that the book wanted a narrator with a modern voice and contemporary sensibilities, because that’s how the tale would best resonate with readers. So I re-wrote it again, and that’s how Ripped Away became a time-travel fantasy.

When I think about how different the book would be if told from yet a different viewpoint—that of another character, or several other characters, or even an omniscient narrator—I see that Ripped Away could have been many stories. It took time and effort to discover the best POV for the story I wanted to tell, and it was well worth the investment. If students get the chance to experiment with viewpoint through the POV flip exercise, I think it will help them choose the right POV when they do create their own original text.

The flip activity keys students into POV in their reading. You can’t play around with viewpoint in your writing without it seeping into your awareness of what you read. I know several readers who actually use POV as a guide to selecting their leisure reading. Some insist on female first-person POV, others on third-person limited, yet others on multiple points of view. My own daughter goes for first-person stories that are told from the distance of time—an older adult looking back on his or her youth. I, for one, am drawn to the first-person peripheral narrator, like The Great Gatsby’s Nick Carraway. Throw in a dash of unreliability, and I’m hooked. I also like books that skillfully mix it up—part first-person, part third-person, and a sprinkling of second-person for added intensity.

So who knows? Maybe we can get kids to read more by guiding them to stories with the POV they prefer. And kids who read more—anyone who reads more—will be a better writer for it.

Coming February, 2022

About the Book: Ripped Away is based on the real experiences of Jewish immigrants to London during the Jack the Ripper spree, when xenophobia ran high.

In the story, a fortune teller reveals that classmates Abe and Mitzy may be able to save someone’s life…and then she sweeps them to the slums of Victorian London in the middle of the Jack the Ripper spree. To get back home, they’ll have to figure out how the fortune teller’s prophecy is connected to one of history’s most notorious criminal cases. They’ll also have to survive the outpouring of hate toward Jewish refugees that the Ripper murders triggered.

Vernick’s purpose in writing Ripped Away is to illuminate this episode in history, as well as to inspire readers to contemplate possible responses to intolerance. National Jewish Book Award-winning author Anne Blankman calls Ripped Away “an engrossing adventure. From the moment Abe and Mitzy are swept back in time to the infamous Jack the Ripper, readers will clamor to find out what happens next.”

Book Trailer: 

About the Author: Shirley Reva Vernick is the author of four novels for young readers. The Blood Lie is an American Library Association Best Fiction for Young Readers pick and a Sydney Taylor Book Award honoree. Remember  Dippy won the Dolly Gray Literature Award from the Council for Exceptional Children. The Black Butterfly is a Junior Library Guild selection. Ripped Away will be released February 8, 2022 by Regal House Publishing.

Shirley is a graduate of Cornell University and an alumna of the Radcliffe Writing Seminars. When not creating stories, she mentors incarcerated individuals with their writing via the Prisoner Express program.

Please see www.shirleyrevavernick.com for more.

Thank you, Shirley, for your wonderful creative writing activity and for sharing your book–we cannot wait until it is published!

Author Guest Post: “Tech Timeout, a Playwriting Lesson” by Joy Jones, Author of Jayla Jumps In

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“Tech Timeout, a Playwriting Lesson”

An irritated parent accosted me in the parking lot. “Don’t make my son do that assignment,” she pleaded.

Some years ago I taught playwriting to middle schoolers. The class was an elective so all of them had chosen to be there. Yet when it came time to start writing, all I heard was “I can’t think of anything.” or “I don’t have any ideas.”

That’s when I came up with an idea to help them come up with ideas. Prior to beginning the playwriting process, their homework was to ‘Just say no.’ to electronic entertainment. No broadcast or cable television viewing. No computer games or internet browsing. However, using the computer for responding to email, using the internet for teacher-assigned projects and attending movies or plays at a theater were permitted. (This was before cell phones became so pervasive.) And that’s why this mother grabbed me in the parking lot. “You’re punishing the whole family,” she said. “To prevent him from doing it, we have to not do it, too.”

This mother was a lady I liked. She knew I was an author and had aspirations for writing fiction herself but hadn’t gotten around to it. Life in the big city keeps you pretty busy, after all. I would try to encourage her to sit down and write but somehow her schedule would never allow for it.

Despite her impassioned objections to the no TV, no internet rule, I held firm. The assignment required students to abstain for four consecutive days. They could use the computer for homework in other classes, but not for fun. Parents had to sign a sheet documenting that their children had complied. I also sent home a list of things they could do besides watch television or play video games. Among the things I suggested: practice a musical instrument, go to a friend’s house, ride a bicycle, fix that thing that’s been broken forever, sort out a closet, play outdoors. The first item on the list was: start writing your play.

After the experiment, they also had to write about the experience. Some of their comments:

It was okay living without TV. I don’t really watch a lot of television anyway, except on weekends. I went outside for bike rides, went for some ice cream, and played sports…   I also read a lot, and wrote e-mails, letters, essays and poems.  —Alicia K.

It was a nightmare going without TV… I thought I was going to die. Living without TV for four days was not as bad as I thought it was but it was still a little boring. Life went on and I and everybody around me lived.This might sound a little abnormal but I held it in. The temptation was there… I mean once in awhile I felt like getting up and turning on the TV.  —Colby J.

Going without [technology] was not hard. It was actually kind of fun. I got all of my homework done (that is not usual.) I was able to read a book and enjoyed it. I had free time to myself. I was able to work on all my projects and turn them in on time. —Jamela S.

After this period of abstinence, students ‘magically’ had great story ideas to put down on paper. It was easier for them to get their plays underway. Emptying their minds of electronic clutter seeded and strengthened their imaginations.

Although I, too, am guilty of spending too much time bouncing between You Tube and the boob tube, sometimes I actually act on my own advice.

I distinctly remember an occasion when I jumped in the car and reflexively reached for the radio. But before my hand could make contact with the tuner, that still, small voice said “No.”

I stifled the urge to fill the car with noise and stayed silent. As I drove in the quiet, I began thinking about my MG novel JAYLA JUMPS IN, which was still in progress. As I mused about my plot, I was able to work out several scenes. Being willing to put the tech in check enhanced my creative process.

Julia Cameron, creativity guru and author of THE ARTIST’S WAY, calls this practice ‘media deprivation’ when you deliberately call a time-out from consuming all forms of artificial amusement to give your brain a re-set.

Not long after the assignment to temporarily go screen-free so that her son could write a play, that same mom stopped me again in the parking lot. This time she wasn’t angry, she was bubbling over with excitement. “Guess what!” she said. “I finally started my short story!”

Would your students benefit from a technology break?

Would you?

Jayla Jumps In
Author: Joy Jones
Published September 1st, 2020 by Albert Whitman & Company
Paperback releasing Fall, 2021

About the Book: When eleven-year-old Jayla finds out that her mother used to be a Double Dutch champion, she’s stunned. Her mom, who’s on doctor’s orders to lower her blood pressure, could move like that?!? Jayla decides to follow in her mom’s footsteps, thinking that maybe double Dutch can make her stand out in her big, quirky family. As she puts together a team at school and prepares to compete, Jayla finds that Double Dutch is about a lot more than jumping rope–and it just might change her life in ways she never imagined. Full of hilarious family dynamics and plenty of jump rope action, Jayla Jumps In follows one girl’s quest to get her mom healthy and find her place in her community.

Positive review by School Library Journal
STARRED review by Booklist

About the Author: Joy Jones is an author, trainer, and playwright.  Her play, Outdoor Recess, won the Promising Playwrights’ Competition by the Colonial Players in Annapolis, MD. Among her children’s books are the acclaimed picture book, Tambourine Moon, and Fearless Public Speaking, a how-to for teens. Her newest book, Jayla Jumps In, an MG novel, will be released in paperback Fall, 2021.Jayla Jumps In was inspired by the multi-generational double Dutch program she founded, DC Retro Jumpers. Visit her on the web at: http://www.joyjonesonline.com.

Kindly, Joy Jones has offered readers of Unleashing Readers a gift!

If they enter this code on my website, they can download these free ebooks:

For kids – the Jayla Jumps In Activity Book – http://joyjonesonline.com/freebies/ In order to complete the download, they need to enter the code  895$230

For adults – Not Everybody Likes to Exercise, But Everybody Likes to Play –  http://joyjonesonline.com/freebies/. In order to complete the download, they need to enter the code 248#795.

Thank you, Joy, for this awesome activity and for your generous gifts! We are thankful for you!

Author Guest Post: “Spread Hope and Optimism with STEM Picture Books” by Linda Zajac, Author of Robo-Motion: Robots That Move Like Animals

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“Spread Hope and Optimism with STEM Picture Books”

Last year was a challenging year for children. The pandemic disrupted familiar routines associated with school, play, and family life. Kids were thrust into a world with masks, Zoom, and isolation that have taken a toll on their social, emotional, and academic well-being. While news outlets reported grim statistics, students struggled to focus. For some families, basic needs like food and shelter were challenges. Mental-health related visits to pediatric emergency departments increased 24 percent for children aged 5–11 from mid-March 2020 to October 2020.

When the situation seems insurmountable, it’s hope and optimism that help us deal with the stress. Researchers from the University of Minnesota and the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, Greece studied the qualities that make kids resilient to disasters like pandemics. They wrote that hope and optimism in families, schools, and communities contribute to resiliency.

In these extraordinary times, hope and optimism can brighten a world that seems dark. They can temper feelings of anger, worry, loneliness, anxiety, and despair. Hope and optimism in STEM books can educate, illuminate, and inspire while shining a light on science.

In STEM books, hope is a promising discovery, a new method, a novel solution, or an advancement in technology that benefits society. In addition to educating readers, STEM books with visions of a better tomorrow inspire them. In a time of rising seas, raging covid variants, and racist tensions, hopeful books can help a child cope and inspire them to action.

They are many benefits in giving kids hope. Hopeful children have better health and less anxiety. Studies show hope improves academic and athletic performance. It builds resilience and lessens stress in challenging times. Hope can motivate a child to take action towards a long-term goal.

In my book, Robo-Motion: Robots That Move Like Animals, (Millbrook, 9/7/2021) the design team at Millbrook Press took my words and made them richer by surrounding them with color, intrigue, and hope. On each spread, in strikingly similar poses, animals are paired with the robots that mimic their motion,. Robo-Motion, a book about biomimicry, has action verbs on every page. Like animals in the wild, robots in the lab skitter, scuttle, grip, and glide. If we could move like animals, we could jump without getting tired, squeeze into tight spaces, and climb up glass. By building robots that mimic animal motion, we can move like them. Robo-Motion is a hopeful book about how robots can benefit society. A portion of the proceeds will be donated to charity.

With the following exercises, you can use Robo-Motion to boost hope and optimism in your classroom:

EXERCISE 1 – Gratitude

Ask children to pick the robot they are most thankful for. Have them write down the robot name and why they picked it.

EXERCISE 2 – Boost optimism

Have children close their eyes and spend some time thinking about the robot they picked. Ask them to imagine a scene where the robot is doing its job. The robot could be saving a life, cutting costs, gathering information, or making work more efficient.  Have them imagine that everything works out for the best.

EXERCISE 3 – Writing skills

Ask children to write an optimistic story about the robot they picked and how it helped society.

EXERCISE 4  – Spread optimism

Ask children to share their optimistic stories with the class.

You can also bring hope and optimism into your classroom with these recent STEM nonfiction picture books:

  • Crossings by Katy Duffield (Beach Lane, 2020) is a unique STEM book about structures built to protect wildlife from traffic. Although the vehicles that make crossings dangerous for animals are never mentioned in the main text, they appear in nearly all the illustrations. The book takes a fascinating look at manmade structures created to help various animals avoid traffic in the United States and abroad. The common thread is the desire to help wildlife and the hope that they will survive and flourish.
  • The Brilliant Deep by Kate Messner (Chronicle, 2018) is another book with a hopeful message. First, readers meet Ken Nedimyer, a diver. Then, in a wordless full-page spread, readers see the effect of one hotter-than-normal summer—bleached coral. Nedimyer and the Coral Restoration Foundation are farming corals and transplanting them to restore reefs. They’ve planted thousands of coral stalks off the Florida Keys and they’re working with other countries to help their threatened reefs. The book gives readers hope something can be done to regenerate corals damaged by warming ocean waters from climate change.
  • Mario and the Hole in the Sky by Elizabeth Rusch (Charlesbridge, 2019) is a story about Mario Molina discovering and helping to solve a global problem. In the 1980s, scientists discovered a huge hole in the ozone layer over Antarctica. When countries came together and agreed to stop making the CFC’s that were in everything from aerosols to air conditioners, the ozone layer began to recover. By comparing the ozone problem with climate change, readers see that by working together countries can solve global problems. We’ve done it before, we can do it again.
  • A leaking oil pipeline can wreak havoc on the environment. In We Are Water Protectors by Carole Lindstrom (Roaring Brook, 2020), the Ojibwe tribe fights to protect the ecosystem. A black snake symbolizes the oil pipeline that’s never mentioned in the text. The last page gives readers the opportunity to sign a pledge to protect the Earth. With gorgeous illustrations, this book is a rallying cry to action. It leaves the reader feeling hopeful that the tribe, along with others, will not give up their fight to protect water, land, plants, and animals.

STEM books with hope and optimism have power. They can broaden a child’s horizons, expand a child’s mind, and brighten a child’s world. In Emily Dickinson’s poetry collection, hope is the thing with feathers. In a post-pandemic classroom, hope is the thing with pages.

Resources:

Published September 7th, 2021 by Millbrook Press

About the Book: Like animals in the wild, robots in the lab skitter, scuttle, grip, and glide. In this STEAM title about biomimicry, crisp color photographs of animals are paired with the robots that mimic their motion. Action verbs and literary devices introduce each animal on the left, while details about each robot and its purpose grace the opposite page. This nonfiction picture book is a hopeful look at how robots can benefit society. Back matter includes a glossary and information about biomimicry. The book will appeal to young readers interested in animals, engineering, technology, and science. A portion of the proceeds will be donated to charity.

About the Author: Linda Zajac is an award-winning science writer. She’s a former computer programmer, systems analyst, and consultant who would have jumped at the chance to program a robot. Linda writes about cutting-edge science, technology, and biotechnology and how they’re used to save wildlife, advance medicine, and protect the environment. Linda is a Tassy Walden winner and a recipient of the PEN New England Susan P. Bloom Children’s Book Discovery Award. Her published works include six Minecraft books for kids along with many magazine articles in Highlights, MUSE, ChemMatters, and more. Robo-Motion: Robots That Move like Animals was published September 7, 2021 by Millbrook Press.

Thank you, Linda, for this post focusing on the social and emotional learning our students need to do in addition to academic and a way to combine the two!

Author Guest Post: “The Case for Graphic Novels and Chapter Books” by Dusti Bowling, Author of Aven Green Baking Machine

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“The Case for Graphic Novels and Chapter Books”

I have always been a huge reader. At some point during third grade, I discovered my love of stories and have never looked back. Third grade through sixth grade was such a formative time for me as I developed this lifelong love of reading, and some of the books I enjoyed the most were comic books or shorter stories with illustrations. I gobbled up as many Archie comics as I could, read all of The Far Side by Gary Larson, and shuddered in fear at the creepy illustrations in Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark. I honestly couldn’t tell you if I’d be the reader and writer I am today without books like these, and now that my own children are of reading ages, I’ve actively encouraged them to read anything and everything they enjoy. Yes, that has meant a lot of graphic novels and illustrated books. It has also meant them reading the same books over and over and over again, just as I did when I was a kid.

The first thing my ten year old fell in love with was Diary of a Wimpy Kid. She was five when she picked up the first book, and I still remember her coming to me every minute or so to ask me to explain a word. Then she’d read the story again and come to me maybe every couple of minutes. Then she’d read it again. And again. After she’d read that first book probably about a dozen times, she no longer had to ask me to explain any of the words. It was through this rereading of the same book that she developed great reading fluency, confidence, and comprehension skills, and I’m very grateful to Jeff Kinney for teaching her how to read. Would she have naturally gone through this same process on her own with a book without pictures? Without the silly jokes and goofy humor that kept her so engaged? I doubt it.

Being homeschoolers, we’ve spent a lot of time at the library, and my ten year old has always gravitated toward the graphic novel section. We would frequently come home with stacks of graphic novels nearly as tall as she was, and she would read every single one of them. I would make a lot of recommendations, try to introduce her to other styles of books, play longer audiobooks for her, and suggest we try reading new books together, but all she wanted were graphic novels all the time, so I didn’t push it. She loved to read, and I never wanted to interfere with that in any way. After all, her love of reading has always been the end goal.

Then something interesting began happening after a few years of nonstop graphic novels—she decided on her own to try a great big book without illustrations called Wings of Fire, which she found in a little free library at a park. Did she get through it and enjoy it? Let’s just say she’s eagerly anticipating book fifteen right now. Would she have gotten to the point in her love of reading that she’d be willing to read fourteen lengthy books if I hadn’t always allowed her to read and reread the graphic novels she adores so much? Again, I doubt it.

Now that my six year old is reading, she loves my Aven Green chapter books. She brings the books to me over and over for help with the words and to show me the illustrations so we can laugh together (she seems to think I’ve never seen them before). She also loves Junie B. Jones, Puppy Place, Wedgie and Gizmo, and many other chapter books with illustrations. I know one day soon, she’ll probably also fall in love with graphic novels. She’ll probably want to read the same books over and over again (actually she already does that). And then, eventually, she’ll probably also be ready to pick up longer books. When that happens, I’ll be ready for it every step of the way.

Expected publication: August 17th, 2021 by Sterling Children’s Books

About the Book: Aven Green Baking Machine is the sequel to Aven Green Sleuthing Machine which Kellee reviewed in April.

Aven is an expert baker of cakes and cookies. She’s been baking with her mom for a really long time. Since she was born without arms, Aven cracks eggs and measures sugar and flour with her feet. Now, she has her eye on the prize: a beautiful blue ribbon for baking at the county fair. So she teams up with her friends Kayla, Emily, and Sujata. But It turns out they all have very different tastes and a lot of opinions about baking. Talk about a recipe for disaster!

About the Author: Dusti Bowling grew up in Scottsdale, Arizona, where, as her family will tell you, she always had her nose in a book. She released her first middle grade novel in 2017 and hasn’t stopped writing since.

Dusti’s books have won the Reading the West Award, the Sakura Medal, a Golden Kite Honor, the William Allen White Children’s Book Award, and have been nominated for a Cybil and over thirty state awards. Her books are Junior Library Guild Gold Standard Selections and have been named best books of the year by the Chicago Public Library, Kirkus, Bank Street College of Education, A Mighty Girl, Shelf Awareness, and many more. Dusti currently lives in New River, Arizona with her husband, three daughters, a dozen tarantulas, a gopher snake named Burrito, a king snake name Death Noodle, and a cockatiel named Gandalf the Grey.

Thank you, Dusti, for this post that we definitely agree with! Like you said, “ove of reading has always been the end goal!”