APRIL ISSUE
Our April line-up includes interviews with Jerry Pallotta, Ellan Rankin, David Hillman, Kailei Pew, Jonathan Todd, Once Upon a Dance, Dianne White, and Emma Bland Smith!
Conrad Storad introduces us to real Woody Woodpecker, Judy Newman writes a Dear Jerry letter, and Nick Spake reviews Bluey: The Sign!
And be sure to check out our newest book reviews, spring reading list, and special submissions by kid writers! It's all inside!
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FEATURES
Jerry Pallotta
Makes Reading Fun
by Raven Howell
Jerry Pallotta’s inspiration to write his first book came in 1985, while reading alphabet and counting stories to his four children. He considered his own alphabet story, but one about the Atlantic Ocean—something he knew much about as a Massachusetts native. Jerry researched, wrote, and self-published The Ocean Alphabet Book, and was delighted to receive overwhelming support from teachers and students who asked for more. Feeling confident, he pressed on and wrote The Icky Bug Alphabet Book and The Bird Alphabet Book. Many productive years followed, and now Jerry has written over 90 books, including math books, the Icky Bug books, a holiday series, a U.S. Military series, a biography, and Who Would Win?® the global bestselling series, published by Scholastic, which currently has more than 20 million copies in print.
“After I had three books, a publisher told me, ‘You are going to have 50 of these.’ I didn’t really believe him, but I always thought my books would become successful,” Jerry recalls. “I could feel it out in the schools when I was visiting with students. My second book, The Icky Bug Alphabet Book, sold a million copies. I knew then I could be a full-time author. It was always fun.”
Jerry is accomplished in creating factual, fun-to-read children’s books. He’s popular in schools and ends up visiting students more than 150 times a year. He enjoys traveling and has visited schools in all 50 states as well as classrooms in other countries.
Ellan Rankin
Tells Us How to Hide an Elephant
by Raven Howell
When a local newspaper ran a Belfast Zoo archive photo of a young woman in her garden with a baby elephant, author/illustrator Ellan Rankin was intrigued. The article, published during the World War II era, stated the zoo was seeking public help in identifying the woman to find out why the elephant was outside the zoo grounds. Then, digging deeper, Ellan discovered that the woman, a Belfast zookeeper, had stood by her elephant charge during the bombings of the war. Ellan knew that the story of the keeper sneaking Sheila the elephant out of the zoo each night would make a wonderful picture book. Already on her way to becoming an established illustrator, Ellan challenged herself to take on both the illustrations and writing for what is now published by Random House Studio as The Secret Elephant.
Making a book about this tender lifelong friendship was a long and winding road. “I actually began working on it in 2015 as a university project. I then forgot about it for a few years until 2019, when I worked on it during my Masters in Children’s Book Illustration at Cambridge School of Art,” says Ellan. “It was very different then to what it is now. When my publishers got it in 2020, we worked on several different versions. It was very difficult to get the ending right with such limited pages. The artwork now is unrecognizable to what it was in 2015.”
Summarizing the premise of the book, Ellan explains, “Based on a true story and set during World War II, a connection develops between a keeper and a baby elephant. As bombs begin to fall and huge blasts echo around the zoo, the baby elephant and her keeper sneak to the safety and comfort of the keeper’s home. Here, they weather out the worst of the war together in secret.” No spoilers here. You’ll have to read the book to find out what happens when their secret is found out.
One to Read:
David Hillman
by Raven Howell
When author/illustrator David Hillman asked himself, “What legacy do I want to create?” he allowed his love of stories, creative freedom, and passion for writing and illustrating to guide him to release his new book, Berkley the Dog in a Noseful of Trouble. Moreover, it inspired him to launch Two Bridges Publishing. Two Bridges is on track to publish four titles in the next few years, with more books afterward. Working with picture books for various ages, David is intent on creating a platform enjoyable for both child and parent.
He has little doubt if his wife or best friend ever wrote a story about him, it would be a comedy. In line with that fun joviality, the plot and artwork for Berkley the Dog is both endearing and giggle-inducing. “I always wanted to draw comic books,” he says. “I started drawing when I was six. My dad gave me a notepad and I started drawing Spider-Man’s face. When I was 13, I learned I could make a living drawing—that’s something I could be. I knew exactly what I wanted to do at 13. The dream reinvented itself over the years, but it set me on my path to drawing and I’ve been at it ever since.”
David is the middle child from a large New York family. He’s “fluent in all five boroughs” of New York City, and feels at home with city life. David’s father was a NYC school teacher and later, a member of the board of administration. All the while, his father wrote readers for students and workbooks for classrooms on the side. His dad also wrote the distinctive Star Wars Attack on Reading which David believes can still be accessed online.
Kailei Pew
Invites Readers to a World of Wonder
by Raven Howell
What do swim fins, Popsicles®, Infection-Detecting Stitches, the Braille alphabet, and the Taco vs. Burrito board game all have in common? They were all invented by kids!
When Remya Jose had to spend many hours washing her family’s laundry by hand, she invented a pedal-powered washing machine that could finish the chore in only 20 minutes! When Tripp Phillips’ LEGO creations kept falling apart, he developed a glue strong enough to hold his creations together that would wash off when he was ready to build something new! And when Fatima Al Kaabi didn’t have anyone willing to teach her about robotics, she turned to the internet to teach herself all the skills she needed and created multiple crowd-pleasing robots in the process!
From Popsicles® and swim fins to robots and glitter shooting prosthetics, Kailei Pew’s middle grade nonfiction debut is full of fun and inspiring stories, illustrated by Shannon Wright, about real kid inventors who proved that even the youngest people can change the world. We wanted to learn more!
Hi Kailei! Thank you for answering our questions!
Thank you so much for having me! I feel truly honored and grateful.
Where did you grow up?
I grew up just outside of Phoenix, Arizona. Life took me away for a time, but I’ve been back for about seven years and it’s so good to be home. It’s amazing to live close to family, and there’s truly nothing quite like the Arizona desert.
Jonathan Todd
Encourages Kids to Find Their Voice
Jonathan Todd has written a graphic novel that many kids (and grown-ups) can relate to. Cecil is shy, and he’s unsure how to relate to other kids his age and how to navigate social situations. Using his art, he finds a way to communicate his feelings and his humor in a way that everyone can understand.
But the few kids who are impressed by Cecil’s art aren’t always nice to him. When one of his drawings is misused and gets him into serious trouble, can Cecil stand up for himself and figure out who his real friends are? We asked Jonathan to tell us more about this inspiring, coming-of-age story.
Where did you grow up?
I grew up initially in the Dorchester neighborhood of Boston until my family moved to Miami, Florida, when I was seven. I felt like the best years of my childhood were spent in what used to be called Perrine, Florida, when I was in the 5th and 6th grades. After the 6th grade, my family moved back north to the western suburbs of Boston. I did high school in central Massachusetts.
Once Upon a Dance
Gets Kids Moving
by Raven Howell
Ready, set, dance! Scientific studies have proven that dance is the best form of exercise for extending life and providing a host of benefits for the body and brain. Teacher Terrel of Once Upon a Dance, an expert in the field, says, “It’s non competitive yet social, allows for positive endorphins, and participants can see definitive progress very quickly.”
Terrel continues to fulfill her choreographic destiny by releasing Once Upon a Dance’s 35th book, a stand-alone, to get kids excited about their first dance class. “We’re thrilled about the upcoming release of Ready Set Dance.”
Many books in the Dance-It-Out! series could be viewed as one-act plays that weave in movement and breathwork. The other collections are ideal for older dance students.
photo by Theresa Green
Q&A with
Dianne White
by Julianne Black DiBlasi
Spring is just the best. We crawl out of our winter dens (both physically and mentally), start to shake off the bad habits and boring routines we fell into while we needed them, and start to blink our eyes at the sky and wonder what comes next. It’s a wonderful time to take deep breaths and re-explore our surroundings. Sometimes everything was just as we left it. And sometimes not so much. But with gratitude, the details can be new again with a vibrancy lost to busy minds and that annoying winter mental fog.
Which brings us to this month’s Q&A with Dianne White! Her upcoming release, Finding Grateful, brings us back through the baby steps of noticing, remembering, and making conscious decisions to look at life with more awareness and, well, gratitude. Thank you, Dianne, for taking some time to answer questions for our Story Monsters. We are grateful to have you with us!
Q: How did Finding Grateful come about? Do you remember how and when you first had the idea?
A: A number of years ago, I listened to a podcast and the host mentioned something called a “gratitude walk.” I’d never heard it described in this way, and I liked the idea of taking a walk with the intent of being more mindful about noticing—really noticing—the things we’re grateful for that we see and hear when we’re outside.
Right away, I knew I wanted to write a book about gratitude, and the first thing I did was to take a walk and make an actual list of the things I saw, heard, and smelled: purple flowers, a clacking motor, cut grass, even a web-like climbing apparatus at the park. Many of these ended up in the finished manuscript.
The Book Bug
Emma Bland Smith
Introduces Kids to Fannie Farmer
by Raven Howell
Fannie believed anyone could be a successful cook with specific instructions. The book is a wonderful introduction to an inspirational woman and an ode to the impact her work has made in today’s kitchens all over the world.
“She took a scientific approach to cooking. She didn’t believe in just throwing things in,” Emma explains. “Everything should be measured with great precision—otherwise, you’d have no way of knowing a recipe would come out the same each time! When she was writing her cookbook, she turned her classroom into a sort of lab and had her students test and re-test recipes.”
In the late 1800s when Fannie Farmer was a child, cooking and baking recipes were very different from what you’d find today. Emma cites some truly funny ingredient instructions she discovered while researching her book. “Oh, there are some great ones I found going through old recipes! “Have the milk blood-warm,” “spices, a sufficient quantity,” “the weight of six eggs in sugar,” “butter the size of a walnut,” and my very favorite, “a suspicion of nutmeg.” I think we should revive that last one, don’t you? In all seriousness, I absolutely love these old measurements, but they aren’t very useful if you’re trying to get a recipe just right.”
MONTHLY COLUMNS
-
Monsters at the Movies
Bluey: The Sign
by Nick Spake -
Life of a Reader
Dear Jerry Pallotta
by Judy Newman -
Conrad‘s Classroom
Meet the Real Woody Woodpecker
by Conrad J. Storad -
Liv On Life
My Hometown Is a Dynamic Literary Inspiration
by Olivia Amiri -
Kids Corner
Soup Recipe
from Emma Bland Smith -
School of Thought
Money Matters
by Lilah Sanchez, grade 8 -
My Favorite Teacher
Mr. Ganus
by Yoonwoo Lee, grade 10
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