TeachingBooks asks each author or illustrator to reflect on their journey from teaching to writing. Enjoy the following from Nashae Jones.
by Nashae Jones
Many people believe that teachers are magic. And there is a sort of logic to that. Teachers are not only connoisseurs of knowledge, they are many other vital things to students. And for some people, the teacher that stays up until midnight to grade essays before a deadline or who is up at six in the morning to put together an interactive lesson plan is made of something that defies logic. So, therefore magic. In a way, writers are considered to be wizards. It is easy to believe that writers sit down, write a manuscript, and court an agent and editor, and boom you’re published. On both accounts, though the end results might result in something similar to sorcery, magic is too simplistic and disingenuous a solution. Both teaching and writing are the result of hard work, perseverance, and a healthy will to never give up.
Teaching writing used to be one of my least favorite things to do, and it wasn’t because of the curriculum or the overall pedagogy. It was the lack of buy-in that I got from the students. No matter how hard I tried I couldn’t get eleventh graders interested in the writing process. It was too arduous and too steeped in the necessary component of revision. My students didn’t understand the need for revising, because they erroneously believed like many people that writing was supposed to be magic. They wanted to be able to write their paper, and then immediately turn it in. When students in my class figured out that this wasn’t how writing worked, they instantly became disengaged. This is the age of instant gratification after all.
So, I continued to teach writing to students who didn’t really want to write, and because of this it became my least favorite thing to teach. It wasn’t until I started writing my own book, Courtesy of Cupid, that I realized that my students weren’t the only ones who got frustrated with revisions. It was then that I realized that maybe my students needed to see that even teachers get stuck, and even though revisions can be painful they were necessary also. So, I decided to construct a lesson plan that integrated my own writing and revisions. Every Monday, I would project a piece of writing onto the board, and then I would walk the students through my revision goals. Afterwards we would talk through the revisions I would make. Of course, I’d modeled the revision process before, but this time I decided to make the students active participants in a continuous process. The students were invested in the writing that we were revising together, and in turn they became excited about writing and revising their own pieces.
I found that being honest and transparent with my own students about my own writing, had sparked their own interest and excitement with the writing process. And if that itself isn’t some type of magic, I don’t know what is.
TeachingBooks personalizes connections to books and authors. Enjoy the following on Nashae Jones and the books she’s created.
Listen to Nashae Jones talking with TeachingBooks about the backstory for writing Courtesy of Cupid. You can click the player below or experience the recording on TeachingBooks, where you can read along as you listen, and also translate the text to another language.
Explore all of the For Teachers, By Teachers blog posts.
Special thanks to Nashae Jones and Simon & Schuster for their support of this post. All text and images are courtesy of Nashae Jones and Simon & Schuster and may not be used without expressed written consent.
]]>Jo-Lynn Kirby, the main character of my YA feminist thriller Not Like Other Girls (Bloomsbury, 2024), is an unlikable narrator… or maybe she’s not. It depends on the reader, which is honestly what I hope for as an author: I want readers to engage with the book on their terms and come to their own conclusions. If a reader thinks Jo is unlikable or stressful or funny or loveable, then I think the reader is right.
But as an author, I know it’s still important how I talk about Jo, too. On the surface, Not Like Other Girls is about Jo investigating the disappearance of her ex-best friend, but it’s also about how we internalize the stories people tell about us. How they treat us. The names they call us. Lately I’ve been thinking about the story it tells when I call Jo an unlikable narrator.
From the earliest drafting stages, I had a feeling she’d get this label. After all, I titled the book after a very contentious trope, and Jo wholly embodies it from the first page. She’s the kind of girl who just gets along better with the guys and rolls her eyes at other girls, who talks out of turn too often, who acts like she’s so much cooler than everyone else. I knew Jo thinking she’s not like those other girls might make her hard to like, so in many ways, I felt like I had to warn readers in advance. I’d say, “She’s abrasive at first, but she gets better, I promise!” Even when I submitted this book to literary agents, I referred to Jo as “sometimes unlikable” in the query.
But what is it, really, that makes Jo unlikable? What are the qualities we identify in young women as bad, and why do I sometimes feel like I need to apologize for her?
Yes, Jo is prickly and messy and standoffish, but she’s been burned before. Yes, Jo is angry, but she has a lot to be angry about. Jo is complicated and real in a way that so many people in her life—peers, teachers, even her parents—fail to recognize because they’ve already made up their minds about her.
I worry I might be doing the same thing when I call Jo “unlikable.” So much of Jo’s character arc centers around her learning that “girls like her” have voices that matter, and the language I use when I talk about Not Like Other Girls matters, too. I think there are so many teen readers who will see themselves in Jo. I think, too, that there are readers who need to see themselves reflected in a complex, flawed girl trying to find herself again. It isn’t until Jo sees that she is no less deserving of compassion and grace and empathy than anyone else, despite what people say, that she can really reclaim her own story—and what’s not to like about that?
Hear Meredith Adamo’s Audio Name Pronunciation
Listen to a Meet-the-Author Recording for Not Like Other Girls
Explore Meredith Adamo’s author page on TeachingBooks
Text and images are courtesy of Meredith Adamo and may not be used without express written consent.
TeachingBooks asks each author or illustrator to reflect on their journey from teaching to writing. Enjoy the following from Sheryl Haft.
by Sheryl Haft
“I need to take these papers home,” I say in my Let’s Engineer workshop for ages 4-8. I hold a stack of loose papers and stride around the classroom, swinging my arms. Of course, papers spray everywhere. Kids giggle.
“I have a PROBLEM!” I say. “How can I hold these papers together?”
“I know!” says one girl. “A stapler.”
I grab a stapler. “Someone invented this little machine,” I point out, fastening the papers with a click. “Problem solved!”
“WOW,” the kids say as if seeing the magic of a stapler for the first time.
Kids now understand that an invention solves a problem.
Reading my new picture book MAZIE’S AMAZING MACHINES together, we discover more problems…
“It’s hard for Mom to carry a stack of heavy boxes,” says the superhero inventor and kid engineer, Mazie McGear. “That’s a problem!”
“Engineering to the rescue!”
THINK BLINK! Mazie turns on her imagination.
RIBBLE SCRIBBLE! She draws.
BING BANG BOOM! She builds!
“Wheels and ramps help move things,” Mazie explains to Mom. Her Roly-Ramp invention whooshes Mom’s heavy boxes right down the stairs. PUSH WHOOSH!
We find more problems around Mazie’s house.
Mazie’s big brother Jake can’t wake up in the morning. SNOOOORE!
“I’m going to invent a special alarm clock, just for Jake.” Mazie cheers. “The Waker-Upper Rocket Machine!”
By the climax of the book, the kids are riveted by Mazie’s biggest problem of all. How will Mazie get her dog, Doodle, down from the top of the roof!? “Yip!” Doodle cries.
Finishing the story with Mazie’s family “Hug-A-Love Machine”, we then explore the glossary of Mazie’s 6 Simple Machines: The Pulley, Lever, Inclined Plane, Screw, Wheels and Axels and Wedge. Now students are ready to take on a problem of their own.
I point to a bowl on the floor: “Doodle’s bowl needs to be filled up with food so that he can eat. But the dog food box up on the table is too heavy to lift.”
“What kind of “Dog Bowl Filler-Up Machine” can you invent that will allow some dog food to travel down and fill up the bowl—without spilling all over the floor?” “Let’s engineer!”
THINK BLINK the kids imagine.
RIBBLE SCRIBBLE they draw their ideas.
BING BANG BOOM they build.
Students string, fold and tape materials together to create pulleys and inclined planes. They try-out and iterate their designs – prototyping in real time. And while working in pairs or teams they are developing collaboration, communication, and critical thinking skills.
Towards the end of class, we visit everyone’s Filler-Up Machine. Teams demonstrate how their machine works. Or partially works. Or even fails: One pulley-system machine zips only halfway down and dog food falls to the floor.
“Which part of the invention is working well?” I ask, encouraging the ‘growth-mindset’. “Which part is not working well?” “What can you do to improve your machine tomorrow?” Engineers know that to IMPROVE on one’s idea is an important part of inventing. We applaud each team’s effort.
Gathered back on the rug, I ask: “Are there problems at home that you’d like to solve with an invention?” Students’ hands pop up.
“My dog always spills water all over the floor,” says one boy. “I want to invent a water-picker upper machine.”
“I HATE making my bed every morning,” says a girl. “I’m going to invent a bed-maker machine!”
Kids are acting on what most inventors know: Problems are opportunities to invent solutions.
Renowned Psychologist and Author, Carol Dweck affirms: “When we give students the freedom to tinker and try new things, they are more likely to develop a growth mindset and become resilient problem-solvers.” Later that evening, a student’s parent sends me a note that illuminates this point:
“We just finished dinner and Sam started pushing James around the apartment in a big cardboard box. He was having some trouble pushing him. It wasn’t going as fast as he wanted, so he turned to me and said, “Mom, we need to put it on wheels.”
“Sam went around collecting round things that could be wheels and taped his toy trucks to the bottom of the box. Now he is rolling James all over the apartment!”
Engineering is an action-oriented and practical approach to problem solving that can apply to any challenge. By empowering kids with hands-on learning, it’s exciting to imagine what other problems in their lives – and in the world—they will be emboldened to solve.
“Let’s engineer!”
TeachingBooks personalizes connections to books and authors. Enjoy the following on Sheryl Haft and the books she’s created.
Listen to Sheryl Haft talking with TeachingBooks about the backstory for writing Mazie’s Amazing Machines. You can click the player below or experience the recording on TeachingBooks, where you can read along as you listen, and also translate the text to another language.
Explore all of the For Teachers, By Teachers blog posts.
Special thanks to Sheryl Haft and Penguin Young Readers Group for their support of this post. All text and images are courtesy of Sheryl Haft and Penguin Young Readers Group and may not be used without expressed written consent.
]]>Experience the joy of Reader’s Theater as words leap from the script and take center stage. Consider these five ways to use scripts in classrooms and library programming.
Celebrate diverse cultural experiences by exploring stories, folk tales, and fairytales from around the world.
Build background knowledge using nonfiction scripts to construct context and deepen understanding.
Develop fluency, vocabulary and comprehension through repeated reading.
Put on a show and take your Reader’s Theater scripts to a full production! Listen to actress and author Julie Andrews Edwards explain the connections between books and performance.
Learn from Sharon Creech as she joins forces with Avi, Walter Dean Myers, and Sarah Weeks to share insights and strategies for using reader’s theater in the classroom. Then extend their experience by having students create their own reader’s theater scripts!
Explore the entire Reader’s Theater Collection on TeachingBooks and view this short video to find additional Reader’s Theater resources on TeachingBooks.
We’d love to hear how you’re using TeachingBooks resources in your classrooms and libraries! Leave your ideas in a comment below.
]]>Each month we feature free and fun book contests and giveaways. We hope you will enjoy the following opportunities as well as the author and book resources available via TeachingBooks.
When an otherwise harmless apple becomes the instrument for losing a tooth, a young girl is ready to retire her smile. That is . . . until she discovers teeth can give us all a lot to smile about.
Gnome Road Publishing is giving away three hardcover copies of Sea Smiles. Send an email to info@gnomeroadpublishing.com with the subject line: “Sea Smiles -TeachingBooks.net Giveaway!” Include your name and an address in the body of the email.
Deadline: March 15, 2024 (Open to U.S. Addresses)
Explore the resource guide!
When the family flour sack is emptied, Nancy Bess remakes it into a dress. But little girls grow as little girls do, and soon that dress is too small. Bit by bit, Nancy Bess fashions the material into new creations, until finally, all that is left of the flour sack are a few tattered pieces. Peering into the family scrap basket, Nancy Bess comes up with a plan to use the material once more, sewing something special to last for generations.
Gnome Road Publishing is giving away three hardcover copies of Nancy Bess Had a Dress. Send an email to info@gnomeroadpublishing.com with the subject line: “Nancy Bess Had a Dress -TeachingBooks.net Giveaway!” Include your name and an address in the body of the email.
Deadline: March 18, 2024 (Open to U.S. Addresses)
Engage with the resource guide!
Olive loves her Mr. Snuggles more than anything else in the world. He’s cuddly. Reliable. Perfect. And unfortunately . . . lost! When Mr. Snuggles mysteriously reappears, Olive couldn’t be more excited. They are back on track to being best friends forever. Except, something doesn’t feel quite right. Mr. Snuggles is a little too clean and a little too fluffy. He’s an imposter! And when Olive finds the shiny new box, the proof is undeniable. Now Olive must make room for more than one Mr. Snuggles in her heart or find a way to rid the Imposter from her life for good.
Gnome Road Publishing is giving away three hardcover copies of The Imposter. Send an email to info@gnomeroadpublishing.com with the subject line: “The Imposter -TeachingBooks.net Giveaway!” Include your name and an address in the body of the email.
Deadline: March 18, 2024 (Open to U.S. Addresses)
Engage with the resource guide!
The Wonderful Wisdom of Ants (Crown Books, 2024) introduces young readers to the amazing world of the tiny but mighty ant. A delightful blend of nonfiction and inspirational humor, this engaging book is filled with fascinating details about the inner workings of life in an ant colony.
Crown Books for Young Readers is giving away 5 copies of The Wonderful Wisdom of Ants. Submit an entry for a chance to win!
Deadline: March 19, 2024 (Open to U.S. Addresses)
Explore the author’s website!
Miss MacDonald Has a Farm (Doubleday Books, 2024) is a rollicking, rhyming read-aloud that puts a feminine spin on the beloved song. This charming picture book celebrates the positive themes of healthy eating, plant-based meals, local produce, gardening, seasons, and female farmers.
Doubleday Books for Young Readers is giving away 5 copies of Miss MacDonald Has a Farm. Submit an entry for a chance to win!
Deadline: March 19, 2024 (Open to U.S. Addresses)
Watch the book trailer!
Best friends Duck and Cat have a problem—Cat makes Duck sneeze! “I think—achoo!—I’m allergic to you,” Duck declares. Hilarity ensues as Cat keeps trying to solve the problem—but Duck keeps sneezing! Is Duck really allergic to Cat or is something else going on?
Astra Books for Young Readers will be giving away 10 free copies of You Make Me Sneeze!. Submit an entry for a chance to win!
Deadline: March 30, 2024 (Open to U.S. Addresses)
Share the coloring sheets!
A young adult fantasy story that follows four teenagers who discover a piece of advanced technology while on vacation in South Dakota that sweeps them up into an otherworldly adventure.
The author is giving away four signed copies of Beneath Storm Mountain. Send a brief message to klsturde@hotmail.com with your name and the address where you would like your book sent.
Deadline: March 31, 2024 (Open to U.S. Addresses)
Engage with the lesson plan!
It’s wild out there for baby animals, but nature’s superdads can handle it all. A great horned owl dad brings home tasty prey to his nest, while a sandgrouse dad carries precious water on his feathers across the desert for his thirsty chicks. Wolf dads love a game of tug-of-war with their rambunctious pups, glass frog dads protect their eggs from predators with powerful kicks, and kiwi dads sit on their eggs for eighty days, keeping them safe and warm. And did you know that giant water bug dads can tote a whopping 150 eggs on their backs while doing push-ups? The team behind Supermoms! delivers another humorous and fascinating look into wild parenting, highlighting how superdads from seahorses to gorillas feed, protect, nurture, and even incubate their babies. The comics-panel format, with its lively art and cheeky comments from offspring, makes for an engaging read. Back matter includes bonus super facts about each animal and recommendations for more children’s books, websites, and episodes to explore.
Candlewick Press is giving away 5 copies of Superdads!: Animal Heroes. To enter, send an email to Anne.Irza-Leggat@candlewick.com with the subject line “Superdads” and please include your mailing address.
Deadline: March 31, 2024 (Open to U.S. and Canadian Addresses)
Explore the book guide for the first book in the Animal Heroes series!
]]>Reading and writing and more reading were my favorite things to do growing up in Queens, NY. I practically lived at the library and checked out a towering stack of books during each visit. My family used to go on vacation in Vermont every summer and my favorite thing to do was explore the numerous antique shops to find old books. So, when I found out that people actually got paid to help create them, what I wanted to be when I grew up immediately switched from ballerina to book editor. I somehow ended up in children’s books, which turned out to be exactly where I wanted to be. While I would occasionally get to edit a non-fiction book, most of the titles I worked on were fiction, which I loved.
Many years later, after my daughter was born, I decided to make the move from working in an office to writing and editing from home. (That means I get to spend a lot of time with my Boston Terrier, Jack. But the only time he shows interest in my work is during Zoom calls when he insists on sitting on my lap.) That’s when I started writing for Kane Press on their Makers Make It Work and Math Matters series and later, Dollars to Doughnuts. At first, I was a little worried (I was an English major, not a scientist, mathematician, or financial expert!) but I soon discovered that this was a combination that really spoke to and worked for me. Why exactly, you may ask? Because…
I Get to Use My Brain in a Different Way
Writing a made-up story and writing a fictional situation that revolves around a specific concept are very different. I have to come up with a premise that conveys the concept in a fun and interesting way. It gives me a structure to follow, but limits the stories I can write, always an interesting challenge!
I Get to Write About Things That Interest Me
Like many kids, I had a healthy appreciation of money! Earning it from doing chores. Receiving it in birthday cards from my Grandma. Saving it in my Raggedy Andy bank and then when I had enough, opening up my very first savings account. In fact, I kept close tabs on my bank book which got updated by the bankteller after each deposit. I always knew my balance down to the penny just like Julian in Cash Stash. I would have loved to have found a series like Dollars to Doughnuts to teach me all about money matters.
My Makers Make it Work book, Slime King (Astra Books for Young Readers, 2019), came into being because my daughter and all her friends were completely caught in the slime craze and we were curious about the chemistry of the slime we were always making at home. And my family’s love of medieval fairs made that the perfect setting for Think Positive, Pippa! (Astra Books for Young Readers, 2022) and its living board game which taught the concept of negative numbers.
I Get to Do Research
While I own a credit card, have a savings account, and know the importance of sticking to a budget, I did still have to do some research on the finer points of each for the Dollars to Doughnuts books. Like how old does a kid have to be to get a debit card? What’s the correct terminology for explaining how a budget works? Do you need to have a parent’s permission to open a bank account? For Double or Nothing (Astra Books for Young Readers, 2018) a Makers Make It Work title, I got to take a field trip to a 3D Printer in Brooklyn for a lesson on how the machines work. And we just had to go to another Medieval Fair so I could get more details to accurately set the scene in Think Positive, Pippa! (not really, we were going anyway!)
I Get to Use My Experiences, Good and Bad
When I was young, I loved bedazzling my clothes with rhinestones, so that’s where the Blinginator in Birthday Bling (Astra Books for Young Readers, 2024) the first book in the Dollars to Doughnuts series, comes from. And I used my experience selling Girl Scout cookies (I’ll be honest, I didn’t earn any badges for my cookie selling skills!) to write the opening scene in the third book, Cash Stash (Astra Books for Young Readers, 2024). In book four, All That Glitters (Astra Books for Young Readers, 2025), I used a disappointing visit to a pop-up experience with my daughter and her best friend as the basis for an event the characters want to attend called SugarFest.
And Best of All, I Get to Help Make Learning Fun
It’s a challenge to come up with a fun, engaging story while also teaching readers subjects that might be considered dry. The scene in Cash Stash where Julian’s little sisters force him to play a game of Hot or Cold to find his missing piggy bank was so much fun to write. He was just so annoyed and they were so silly. I had so much fun writing that chapter! My hope is that readers will remember the important information I’m trying to convey because I made it extra entertaining.
Currently, I am finishing up the fourth book in the Dollars to Doughnuts series, working on a series of early chapter books featuring an iconic character from my childhood, and collaborating on an original graphic novel with my 16-year-old daughter. I can’t tell you how much fun it is to sit across from a writing partner after all those years of working alone. (Don’t tell Jack. He is great company, but truth be told he’s not very helpful with the brainstorming!)
Hear Catherine R. Daly’s Audio Name Pronunciation
Listen to a Meet-the-Author Recording for Batter Splatter
Explore Catherine R. Daly’s author page on TeachingBooks
Text and images are courtesy of Catherine R. Daly and may not be used without express written consent.
TeachingBooks asks each author or illustrator to reflect on their journey from teaching to writing. Enjoy the following from Matt Eicheldinger.
by Matt Eicheldinger
Stories have always been a part of my life. I have some pretty early memories of my parents tucking me in at night, but before they left, they would tell me a story with me as the main character. Most of the time it was me using my karate moves to defeat an enemy or win the big game. Luckily, these stories didn’t go to my head, and I’ve stayed grounded, but I really enjoyed hearing a new story about myself every night.
Maybe that’s why I remember so much of my childhood. It was almost like being trained to keep track of my own narrative. That’s why I can remember how I felt when I entered my third-grade class in 1994, but not necessarily putting milk back in the fridge and instead putting it in a cabinet. You can ask my wife to verify how much I do that.
When I became a middle school teacher in 2010 though, these memories quickly became part of my classroom. Instead of handing out candy to students like some of my colleagues were doing, I started telling stories from my childhood as an incentive to help motivate my students. I kept these stories in something called “The Story Jar”, a literal glass jar in my classroom. If we finished a task early, or the class all did well on a project, I would pick a story from the jar and act it out for the class. I quickly realized how easily I could relate to my students by telling them embarrassing moments of farting during a school play, failing at my first kiss, and getting trampled by a llama.
Quickly, the stories became an instant hit.
However, I wasn’t confident I would remember all of them ten, or twenty years later. So, at the age of 21, I decided I should write them down before I forgot. However, as I did this, a story unfolded I did not expect. I started connecting all these mini, exaggerated stories from my childhood until I had a plot, and then subplots, and major and mini characters until suddenly-
I had a book.
I called it Matt Sprouts and The Curse of The Ten Broken Toes, a fictional, yet mini autobiographical compilation of embarrassing and true stories. I had no plan other than to print it and let students read it if they wanted to so we could get to know each other better.
Oh, and in case you are wondering, the answer is yes… I have broken all ten of my toes.
That was the most common question I got when students started reading my book. That, and “When will you write the next book?!”
Because of their response, I knew I had something that could hold the attention of middle grade readers, so I decided to pursue publication. For the next decade I tried. I tried really hard. I wrote hundreds of letters to literary agents, and received hundreds of rejections, partly because no adult saw what I saw: it was a very funny and relatable book, and it had been field tested for years.
I finally decided to self-publish the novel in 2021. Two years later I had sold thousands of copies, won a few independent book awards, and ultimately got picked up by Andrews McMeel publishing for a multi-book deal to continue writing The Matt Sprouts series.
But there was a hiccup in the book deal. The publisher wanted me to illustrate the novel. I have no formal training in any art form, but there was something else I had been doing for years with my students that suddenly came in handy:
I have been drawing my students since 2010.
At the end of each year, I capture my students in cartoon form and create a coloring sheet. Each class drawing features unique inside jokes, memories from class, and even some easter eggs of moments I shared with particular students.
So, the answer then was yes. I’ll illustrate.
As I did, I showed my students the sketches and ideas, and they gave me their honest, and sometimes blunt, feedback. They really are the first editors of the book!
It really is strange for me to think about the creation of my first novel too: a book written for my students, read by students, and vetted by my students! That’s why I like to think about it as not just my project, but a project of many that stemmed out of something that is crucial to being a successful teacher: building relationships with your students.
So often we think it is the student that must connect with the teacher, but often I find it is the other way around. I need to connect with my students, and to do that I need to be vulnerable and share things from my own life. There is no way I could have persevered through some of the tougher moments of rejection without my students. I couldn’t tell students to chase their dream while simultaneously giving up on mine, but I also didn’t want to sugarcoat the process for them either. Over those ten years trying to get published I showed my class every rejection letter. Their response? A lot of questions.
How are you feeling?
What will you do next?
Are you going to keep going?
Does this mean it’s over?
These are the types of questions that lead to a greater connection with each other. Who are you at your core? Who are you when things are not going your way? As a teacher, when you begin to share these deeper feelings with your students you also get them back in return, and that is when you can start to navigate education together; you’ve built a foundation of trust.
As a teacher, this is what I want my students to remember about me. Not necessarily that I achieved my ultimate goal, but the process that it took me to get there. From the outside, it may seem that I did so much of this on my own, but the reality is I had many people support me on the way, including my students.
TeachingBooks personalizes connections to books and authors. Enjoy the following on Matt Eicheldinger and the books he’s created.
Listen to Matt Eicheldinger talking with TeachingBooks about the backstory for writing Matt Sprouts and The Curse of The Ten Broken Toes. You can click the player below or experience the recording on TeachingBooks, where you can read along as you listen, and also translate the text to another language.
Explore all of the For Teachers, By Teachers blog posts.
Special thanks to Matt Eicheldinger and Andrews McMeel Publishing for their support of this post. All text and images are courtesy of Matt Eicheldinger and Andrews McMeel Publishing and may not be used without expressed written consent.
]]>In this post, we feature author Jody Jensen Shaffer, whose previous titles include Prudence the Part-Time Cow, illustrated by Stephanie Laberis, which was selected for inclusion on the Missouri Show Me Award list, among other honors. You can hear her speak about her new picture book, Creep, Leap, Crunch! A Food Chain Story, illustrated by Christopher Silas Neal, which has been named a 2024 Outstanding Science Trade Book selection, and try her “invitation to imagine” activity. You’ll also find other resources to explore. Thanks for joining us, and let us know what you think in the comments below!
With bouncy rhymes, this nonfiction picture book follows a day in the life of the food chain in a “temperate deciduous forest.” From the sun that shines upon the grass and trees to the animals that provide food for each other, each element in nature has an important place. But what happens when the food escapes? A surprise ending draws this cumulative story to a close, while additional notes fill in more of the scientific facts.
Listen to Jody Jensen Shaffer talking with TeachingBooks about creating Creep, Leap, Crunch! A Food Chain Story. You can click the player below or experience the recording on TeachingBooks, where you can read along as you listen, and also translate the text to another language.
TeachingBooks asks each author or illustrator on our Virtual Book Tour to share a writing prompt, a drawing exercise, or just an interesting question to spark curiosity and creativity. Enjoy the following activity contributed by Jody Jensen Shaffer.
In Creep, Leap, Crunch! A Food Chain Story, I use a cumulative story structure, in which sections of text are repeated each time a new animal is introduced. Write a cumulative story of your own that is NOT about the food chain or an old lady who eats flies. What would your cumulative story be about? Maybe it wouldn’t even include eating! Be creative. Have fun!
As part of our Virtual Book Tour, TeachingBooks asks authors and illustrators to complete short sentence prompts. Enjoy Jody Jensen Shaffer’s response.
I hope my book encourages kids to think about our glorious, life-giving sun, our amazing earth, and all the creatures and plants with new respect. I hope it will inspire them to take care of what we’ve been given and to be good stewards. There’s only one Earth!
To wrap up this Virtual Book Tour, we thank Jody Jensen Shaffer for signing a book for all of us.
All text and images are courtesy of Jody Jensen Shaffer, Christopher Silas Neal, and Penguin Random House, and may not be used without expressed written consent.
]]>TeachingBooks asks each author or illustrator to reflect on their journey from teaching to writing. Enjoy the following from David Anthony Durham.
by David Anthony Durham
Of the nine published novels that I’ve written there’s only one for which I remember exactly when, where, and why the inspiration for it struck me. The book is The Shadow Prince (Lee & Low, 2021), the first novel in my middle grade solar-punk fantasy series. It was because of my kids and the way we were educating them that it came together so effortlessly.
Here’s the setting of that fateful day. A hot summer afternoon. I had just mowed the grass and came inside to sit down and have a drink of water. I noticed a paperback book about ancient Egyptian gods on the coffee table. My son and daughter had borrowed it from a neighbor, a professor with a focus on Egypt. I began flipping through it. I was immediately thinking about how to build on the interest that spurred them to bring this book home.
We were homeschooling our elementary-age kids at the time. As soon as we took the leap to try homeschooling everything became inspiration for learning. Kids are so naturally curious, and we realized that each and every day provided opportunities to explore and learn about the world with them. Questions asked and expressions of interest in things that would’ve come and gone unnoticed previously now flagged themselves as teachable moments. That might sound grim for the kids. Who needs everything to be a teachable moment? But we knew our approach to teaching was effective when it combined education and entertainment—and interests they naturally expressed.
Because of their interests my interests took on a new perspective too. I hadn’t seriously considered writing for kids at that point, but I had thought a lot about ancient Egypt. I was fascinated by its history and mythology in college, and I had attempted an adult novel set in ancient Egypt. I wrote a hundred pages of it before sharing it with my editor at the time. He found it interesting but “too foreign.” To me that was a virtue! I felt deeply connected with imagining myself into an ancient mindset, into seeing value and logic in beliefs that I don’t have within my modern worldview. My editor was not convinced, and I had to move on to other projects.
But on that summer day with the small, borrowed volume on Egyptian mythology – and thinking of my kids – my fictional mind moved in a different direction. Instead of “too foreign” I looked to fun, whimsical, accessible, to a version of ancient Egypt that felt modern—and even futuristic.
My main character—Ash—became my narrative entry point for this. He spoke with the voice of a twelve-year-old, with touches of humor and snark, but also emotion and vulnerability. He was the kind of friend I thought my kids would like. The story he told was of a poor kid growing up with a mentor in a village far out in the desert, far away from the magical workings that powered the Egypt he was on the fringes of. He’s had a strange education that he can’t make much sense of, and – while he’s not technically an orphan – who, what, and where his parents are is a mystery to him.
It’s not long before Ash is drawn into the center of things, summoned to the capital to compete with other youths to become a guardian and confidante of an Egyptian prince. In many ways he’s introduced to Egypt as eyes and ears for my kids. Through him we meet the gods. Through him beings that had seemed “too foreign” for my editor became out-sized characters with understandable emotions made more complicated by their amazing powers. Instead of distant and unknowable, their traits – powerful, vengeful, generous, benign, wise, petty, courageous, cowardly – skewed toward amusing and even comical spins on the historical record. There’s plenty of ways they embody the mythology—in that regard they’re teachable—but they do so at a level and tone intended to engage and entertain.
Being fantasy the story needed magic—and an explanation for how magic works. This also clicked into place like…well, like magic. The gods themselves are innately magical, each with their own abilities and responsibilities in keeping the world functioning and in service to humanity. Lord Ra takes that even further. In his daily journey across the sky, he joins his divinity with the power of the sun to shine down a magical solar energy on Egypt. It’s a gift that’s akin to solar power in our world. It powers sunskiffs and sunbarges, sunchariots and sunboards, factories and machinery and magnificent cities that are lit at night by energy stored in beetles and other battery-like devices. It’s a mythological reimagining of renewable energy that’s so close to our reality that it’s hardly even fantasy!
Most importantly, Ra’s magical sunlight powers styluses that magicians use to draw glimmering hieroglyphs that can be sparked into spells! That makes all sorts of wizardly spell casting and fantastical feats possible for humans as well gods—all with an ancient Egypt flavor and a hieroglyphic basis.
The royal family, customs and traditions, aspects of daily life, the gifts of the Nile, the different cities and temples and the roles of different gods: all these things weave through the text and are integral to the perilous adventures the characters face.
Obviously, I didn’t invent this approach to writing for younger audiences, but it filled me with energy and enthusiasm because it all directly fed into the way we were shaping our children’s growth and education. As our kids got older, they transitioned to public middle and high school. They did great there! They stayed just as curious and just as keen on reading and learning about the world in ways that matured as they matured.
And me? I got to embark on a multi-book series that excites the kid in me just as much as it hopefully excites my intended audience. I’ve just signed for the third book in the series. I’m looking forward to seeing what I learn—and can offer to readers—in the next adventure.
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Special thanks to David Anthony Durham and Lee & Low for their support of this post. All text and images are courtesy of David Anthony Durham and Lee & Low and may not be used without expressed written consent.
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