Author: kmessner

Are you ready for World Read Aloud Day? It’s an annual celebration of sharing stories from the amazing folks at LitWorld and Scholastic. This year’s World Read Aloud Day will be February 2, 2022!

If you’re new to this page, I’m Kate Messner, author of more than fifty books for kids, including these new releases.

I’m also a former middle school teacher and a forever reader. Each winter, I help out with LitWorld’s World Read Aloud Day by pulling together a list of author & illustrator volunteers who would like to spend part of the day doing quick virtual read-aloud visits with classrooms around the world to share the joy of stories.

Before we get to the list, I want to share one other fun WRAD surprise. This is a busy time for many authors, and while we wish we could visit every one of your classrooms live, that’s just not possible. So this year, I’ve recorded a special World Read Aloud Day video for you, from FERGUS AND ZEKE AND THE 100TH DAY OF SCHOOL! This is the fourth book in our easy reader series about two mice who are classroom pets and the best of friends. (It’s just been released, and you can order copies now!)

Okay…on to this year’s read-aloud volunteer list!

WORLD READ ALOUD DAY IS FEBRUARY 2, 2022!

The authors & illustrators listed have volunteered their time to read aloud to classrooms and libraries all over the world. These aren’t long, fancy presentations; a typical one might go like this:

• 1-2 minutes: Author introduces himself or herself and talks a little about his or her books.
• 3-5 minutes: Author reads aloud a short picture book, or a short excerpt from a chapter book/novel
• 5-10  minutes: Author answers a few questions from students about reading/writing
• 1-2 minutes: Author book-talks a couple books he or she loves (but didn’t write!) as recommendations for the kids

If you’re a teacher or librarian and you’d like to have an author Zoom with your classroom or library on World Read Aloud Day, here’s how to do it:

• Check out this list of volunteering authors and illustrators, and visit their websites to see which ones might be a good fit for your students.
• Contact the author directly by using the email provided or clicking on the link to his or her website and finding the contact form. Please be sure to provide the following information in your request:
  • Your name and what grade(s) you work with
  • Your city and time zone (this is important for scheduling!)
  • Possible times to connect on February 2nd. Please note authors’ availability and time zones. Adjust accordingly if yours is different!
  • Your preferred platform (Zoom, Skype, Google Meet, etc.)
  • A phone number where you can be reached on that day in case of technical issues
• Please understand that authors are people, too, and have schedules and personal lives, just like you, so not all authors will be available at all times. It may take a few tries before you find someone whose books and schedule fit with yours!

If you’re a traditionally published author or illustrator who would like to be added to the list, you can fill out this form to sign up.  Once your schedule is full, please send an email via my website contact form, and I’ll remove your name from the list. Please note that due to deadlines and other obligations, it may take up to a week for me to update.

Lately, school and classroom libraries have seen a marked increase in book challenges. These are attempts by parents – sometimes by other adults who have nothing to do with the schools – to remove books they don’t like from circulation so they’re no longer available to readers. ALL readers. Not just their own.

As educators, librarians, and people who care about both books and kids, it is essential that we speak up about this and push back. Our libraries and classroom libraries have a responsibility to serve all of the young readers in our care. Not just kids from one cultural background or religion. Not just kids whose lives have looked the way we want kids’ lives to look. Not just the kids whose parents show up at school board meetings.

All of them.

When we remove books – or fail to order them in the first place, for fear of someone objecting – we’re doing a huge disservice to the readers in our care. We’re making sure that the young reader who’s never seen someone who looks like them on the cover of a novel never will. We’re making sure the reader who lives with an addict or misses a parent who’s incarcerated continues to feel invisible and alone. We’re removing the lifeline that books can provide for kids who are struggling. We’re turning off the light and leaving our readers alone in the dark.

Before I was an author, I was a National Board Certified middle school ELA teacher. I kept a huge variety of MG and YA titles in my 7th grade classroom library, gave regular book talks, and made it my personal mission to find just the right book for every one of my kids, wherever they were in their reading lives. I’d talk with parents and caregivers about this – and about the diversity of my classroom library.

Instead of responding to book challenges with anxiety and fear, it can be helpful to open a dialogue with families before these issues ever come up. It makes sense to talk with parents and caregivers about our libraries and classroom libraries, let them know that we support their right to guide their own children’s reading choices, and explicitly teach them what steps to take if their reader brings home a book that doesn’t work for them.

Here’s a version of the letter I sent home. Teachers & librarians, please free to borrow language if any of it is helpful to you in your own advocacy and outreach to families. Thanks for fighting the good fight and for the essential work you do for kids every day.

Dear Families,

Our school librarian does a phenomenal job making sure that there are books of interest to every student in our building.  That’s a lot of students.  A lot of different students.

Our middle school serves sixth graders as young as ten years old and eighth graders as old as fifteen.  Five years is a big gap, and those are no ordinary five years.  The difference between ten and fifteen is the difference between Legos and smart phones, the difference between trick-or-treating and Homecoming Dances. The difference between child and young adult.

And our kids are not only different ages; they arrive at school with different reading levels, different backgrounds, and different experiences that have shaped their lives in both positive and negative ways. So it makes sense that they have different needs when it comes to reading.

The book that is perfect for your wide-eyed sixth grader isn’t likely to be a good fit for a fifteen-year-old who’s repeating eighth grade.  The book that eighth grader will read and love is probably not one that would be right for your sixth grader right now.  But as teachers and librarians, we have a responsibility to serve all of the kids who come to us. We have a responsibility to offer a wide range of book choices that speak to all of them and meet all of their diverse needs.

Kids, in general, do a fantastic job self-selecting books. When they find they’ve picked up something they’re not ready for, they’re usually quick to put it down and ask for help choosing something else. As teachers and librarians, we’ll offer recommendations and steer kids toward books that are age-appropriate, and we encourage you to talk about books with your kids. We have multiple copies of many titles in our library.  Let us know if you’d like to check out two copies of a book so you can read together.  And if you find that your student has chosen a book that you think might not be the right book for him or her right now, talk about that, too. 

We respect your right to help your own child choose reading material, and we ask that you respect the rights of other parents to do the same.  If you object to your child reading a particular book, send it back to the library, and we’ll help your student find another selection.  We’ll put the first book back on the shelf because even though you don’t feel it’s the right book for your child right now, it may be the perfect book for someone else’s.

Our library will continue to have a wide range of choices for kids – to meet all of their varied needs and help them all develop a love of reading.  If we can ever be of help to you in recommending titles for your family, please don’t hesitate to ask.

LitWorld’s amazing World Read Aloud Day is coming up on February 2, 2022! One of the fun traditions of this day of sharing stories is for authors and illustrators around the world to Zoom into classrooms & libraries for short read-alouds. For a while now, I’ve helped out by compiling a list of author and illustrator volunteers so teachers & librarians can connect with them to schedule virtual read-aloud sessions on that day.

Teachers & librarians: Please hold tight for right now… the list will be coming soon! Sign up for my email newsletter if you’d like to get the link in your in-box when it’s ready!

Authors & Illustrators: Are you a traditionally published* author or illustrator who would like to be listed as a WRAD virtual read-aloud volunteer? Please read the information & follow the directions below…

WRAD VISITS AREN’T LONG OR FANCY PRESENTATIONS. USUALLY, THEY LAST 10-15 MINUTES AND GO SOMETHING LIKE THIS:

• 1-2 minutes: Author gives a quick introduction & talks a little about their books.
• 3-5 minutes: Author reads aloud a short picture book, or a short excerpt from a chapter book/novel
• 5-10 minutes: Author answers a few questions from students about reading/writing
• 1-2 minutes: Author book-talks a couple books they love (but didn’t write!) as recommendations for the kids

Interested in volunteering? If you’re a traditionally published author or illustrator, just fill out this form to sign up! 

*Why traditionally published? Honestly, it’s to limit the size and scope of this list because I’m one person with limited time. However, if someone else would like to compile and share a list of self-published and ebook author/illustrator volunteers, I think that would be absolutely great, and I’ll happily link to it here. Just let me know! 

Good morning, friends! And welcome to our final week of Teachers Write 2021. Today, we’re going to spend some time scribbling about two things – goals and gratitude.

As I write this, some of you are a month away from the start of your new school year – some a little more, and some a little less. And to be honest, there’s still so much uncertainty swirling around the COVID-19 pandemic, our response to it, and what that will mean for you and your students this year. When so much is out of our control, it can help to focus on small things that are within our power, and I hope that’s where this week’s writing will take us.

Let’s head back outside for this one, okay? Take your notebook or laptop and head for the yard or the deck or the porch, or maybe just an open window if that works best. Take some  deep breaths, and then I’d like you to spend five minutes (you can set a timer if you’d like) in response to this prompt:

This school year, I will…

Here’s the catch. Everything you write needs to be within your power. So it’s fine, for example, to write about how you’ll share a picture book with your kids at least once a week. That’s something you can do all by yourself, whether or not you’re meeting readers in person, and you don’t have to rely on other people to make it happen. You can write as many small goals as you’d like, but make sure at least one of them has to do with your own self care. That old rule about putting on your own oxygen mask first, so you have the ability to help others, is relevant in this time we’re all living through. What’s one small, specific thing you can commit to do in order to keep yourself feeling whole and grounded, whatever happens around you this fall?  Maybe it’s ten minutes of morning yoga or a fifteen minute walk at lunchtime. Maybe it’s simply pausing for three deep breaths before you get in the car or set out for the bus each morning. Maybe it’s setting a timer for ten minutes each evening to write something that has nothing to do with your work.

Your second assignment for today is to write a thank you note. Those of you who attended our Authors Happy Hour earlier this month remember Linda Urban sharing a little about her new novel, Almost There and Almost Not. One of my favorite things about this book is how the main character, California, learns to write thank you notes and exercises her newfound gratitude muscles frequently. The letters range from heartfelt to hilarious, but they all manage to find the positive in a tough situation. We can do that, too.

So set another timer now – ten minutes should do it – and write a short thank you note to someone who brightened your day or your week or your trip to the grocery store recently. (The ghost of California’s etiquette-book-authoring aunt would tell you this needs to be hand written, but I’m fine with you typing and emailing if that’s better for you.) You can send this, or it can be just for you. But write it because there’s research – like, actual research – showing that people who express gratitude are happier and healthier. In the study, subjects assigned to write about gratitude reported feeling happier, which might not be terribly surprising. But they also exercised more and had fewer visits to the doctor’s office. Practicing gratitude literally made them healthier people. And that’s an idea worth exploring as you head toward a new school year. You might want to share some thoughts on this at Jen’s last weekly check-in on Thursday.

One quick reminder – this isn’t part of Teachers Write, but for anyone who wants to explore writing picture book biographies in more depth, there’s still space in my virtual writing workshop “Out-of-the-Box Biographies,” which is happening tomorrow with a video replay and handouts available through the end of September.

I hope that for many of you, part of a self-care plan for the coming year will be taking some time each day to work on your own writing. If that’s the case, you may want to revisit some of our writing prompts from past Teachers Write summers. You can find those here.

Finally, I want to wrap up our Summer 2021 session with a big thank you. Thank you for joining us this summer and especially for the work that you did all year, providing a sense of normalcy and hope for the young people you serve. I’m wishing you good health, inspiration, and joy in sharing stories as you head into the new school year.

Keep writing!

All best,
Kate

Good morning, friends! Welcome to Week 4 of Teachers Write. By now, I hope you’ve had a little time to breathe and recharge, and hopefully you’ve been flexing your writing muscles a bit. We’ve been mining memories, finding strength in places and moments from the past. Today we’ll do some reflective writing on more recent history.

So first…let’s talk about primary sources. I’ve heard from so many of you who have been sharing my History Smashers series in your classrooms and libraries. For those who don’t know about these books yet, they’re graphic nonfiction – an engaging blend of text, illustrations, photographs, and comics – aimed at unraveling historical myths and sharing hidden truths. The series launched last summer and we’ve been smashing myths about the Mayflower, Women’s Right to Vote, Pearl Harbor, and the Titanic. Book five in the series, History Smashers: The American Revolution will be out tomorrow!

Just a quick side note… This one might be my favorite in the series so far, and I’d love to sign a personalized copy for your library or classroom. If you’d like one, just order through my local bookstore with a note in the comments about how you’d like it signed, and they’ll ship it out this week!

The research I’ve done for this series has relied heavily on primary sources – the writings of people who lived through those time periods and documented them through diaries, journals, exploration logs, letters, notes, and other documents. Their personal reflections help turn history from a textbook collection of names and dates into a real story, about real people’s lives. Book six in the series, History Smashers: Plagues and Pandemics, comes out in October and covers everything from the Plague of Athens and the Black Death to COVID-19. This one made me think a lot about the sources that future historians will use when they write about the time we’ve been living through this past year and a half. They’ll have our government statistics about case numbers and news articles about the trajectory of the pandemic, of course. But what documents will we leave behind to tell our own stories?

I’m going to ask you to create one of those primary sources today.

This has been a time of lasts and firsts, of moments – small ones and big ones – that we’ll never forget. Some of us said goodbye to loved ones this year, or didn’t get to say goodbye at all. All of us had to reimagine our lives in a million different ways, adapting to a situation that seemed to shift every time we thought we’d found our footing. Much of it passed in a blur with little time to reflect, much less record what was happening. But for today’s prompt, I’d like you to look back at one moment from the past year and a half and capture it in words, with as much detail as you possibly can.

Maybe it’s the moment you left your classroom last spring, not knowing when you’d be back. Or the first time you held a Zoom storytime. Maybe it’s the last time you ate in a restaurant with a dear friend before the world shut down. Or the first time hugged someone you love again, when it finally opened up.

Here are some moments that are glimmering in my memory right now…

Picking up my daughter from college last March, walking the eerily empty streets of Boston while she finished packing and saying goodbye to her friends.

Visiting my father-in-law in memory care, outdoors and masked, in the last months of his life. There was a patio table between us, turned the long way. We sat at one end and he sat at the other, behind a red-carpet style event rope. It looked as if he were giving a press conference.

Playing cornhole with my parents on a sunny June day after months without seeing them. I can hear the thump of those beanbags.

And last night, seeing a musical for the first time in over a year. A community theater production of “Into the Woods,” performed under the Elks Club Pavilion in a tiny small-town park. It poured rain outside, and I sat in my folding chair crying as the baker sang “No More.”

What are your moments? Make a quick list, and then choose one to explore in more detail. Try to capture everything – not just what happened but the smells and sounds of the moment. The insignificant details that probably matter more than you think. The words people said and how they said them. What your heart felt like.

And then, if you’d like, share your moment-writing below, in the comments for this post. In doing that, we’ll be bearing witness to this time we lived through, leaving breadcrumbs for future historians who want to know what all the facts and figures of this pandemic meant to real people, experiencing real moments in their lives while it all played out.

With this week’s writing, we’ll be doing sometime else, too – processing some of those moments for ourselves so that we can recognize where we’ve been and begin to move forward. That’s where our writing will take us next week, our final week of Teachers Write 2021.

As always, don’t forget to visit Jen’s blog for this week’s Thursday check-in if you’d like to connect. I’ll see you next week!

Hello, friends! Welcome back to Teachers Write! We’ve spent the past two weeks reflecting, mining memories, and searching for moments that reconnect us with our roots. Today, we’re going to look ahead, but before we get to this week’s prompt, I have a couple of housekeeping items.

First of all, thank you SO much to everyone who ordered a copy of Dr. Fauci: How a Boy from Brooklyn Became America’s Doctor! I’m excited to share the news that our picture book biography of America’s top infectious disease specialist debuted at #4 on the New York Times Bestseller List!  If you still need a signed copy for your classroom, you can order from my local independent bookstore, The Bookstore Plus – and then download our teaching & discussion guide for this book. Educator Melissa Guerrette created the guide and included so many thoughtful conversation starters and cross-curricular extension activities.

Some of you were able to join us for last week’s Teachers Write Authors Happy Hour, and that turned out to be an amazing and open conversation about writing and reading in a time where nothing feels normal. If you missed it, don’t worry – we recorded the whole thing so you can watch this week. Here’s the link for the video!

I want to say one more thank you to Tracey Baptiste, Linda Sue Park,Linda Urban, and Jen Vincent for joining us for this powerful conversation. Please check out their books and order for your classroom if you don’t already have them!

One of the things we talked about in our Zoom session was the importance of play in writing and in all creative pursuits. And this week’s writing prompt captures that spirit. We’re going to spend some time brainstorming story ideas, using one of my favorite strategies of all time – three column brainstorming. It’s designed to get a writer thinking about the sorts of unexpected connections that can spark truly unique story ideas. Here’s a video I made to walk you through it – and (bonus!) this works for writers of all ages, so you’ll be able to share it with your students, too, once you’re back writing together.

Remember – this one is just for fun. It’s play time! We’re going to scribble down whatever comes to mind, and then have fun mixing up ideas for possible stories. Ready? Get some paper or your laptop/tablet and have fun!

Be sure to visit Jen’s blog this Thursday to check in with her and your fellow campers – maybe you’ll even have a story from this week’s brainstorming to share!

Have a terrific week!

Kate


One more note…

This isn’t part of Teachers Write, but some of you have let me know that you’ve been inspired to work more seriously on picture book biography manuscripts this summer, so I wanted to let you know about a separate online workshop I’m offering for writers later this month.

“Out-of-the-Box Biographies” is a 90-minute intensive that focuses on the craft of writing picture book biographies. It’s designed for writers currently drafting or revising picture book biographies and for those who would like to explore this genre. Registration is $49.

In this virtual workshop, we’ll take a look at the research and craft behind bestselling and award winning picture book biographies, with a focus on choosing and researching subjects, experimenting with structure, building themes, and avoiding common pitfalls that cause editors to pass on a manuscript for this competitive market. The workshop will conclude with time for Q&A. ASL interpreting will be provided for both the live webinar and the recording.

Topics include:

-Choosing subjects that capture the attention of kids and teachers (and editors, too!)

-Finding sources for historical subjects

-Using time-period & setting details to flesh out a story

-Researching & writing about living people

-Choosing a structure

-Developing themes

-Creating rich back matter

-Avoiding common pitfalls in a crowded market

The webinar will be recorded, and a video replay will be made available (until August 31) for those who cannot attend live. A link to the video replay and handouts will be emailed to all registrants within 24 hours after the live webinar. If you’d like to join us, you can sign up here. 

Hello, friends! Welcome to week two of Teachers Write! How did you do with your breathing and reflecting last week? I’m hoping that taking a little time to slow down, to center yourself and draw on some peaceful memories, has helped you to destress at least a little after this long and unusual school year. This week, we’re going to do more of that reflection, taking you back to your roots. And we’re going to do that using the same strategies that authors use when we write picture book biographies for kids.

I mentioned that week that I have a new picture book biography of Dr. Anthony Fauci (if you’d like a signed copy, you can still order one here), and this week, I want to share some behind-the-scenes writing process stories from that book – strategies that are useful not only when we’re researching someone else’s life but when we’re reflecting on our own and searching for strength in memories.

So first…here’s how Dr. Fauci: How a Boy from Brooklyn Became America’s Doctor came to be. I had the idea for this book while I was working on another project about the childhoods of famous scientists. When I heard a story about Dr. Fauci riding his bike around Brooklyn to deliver prescriptions for the family pharmacy, I knew his story would make a great picture book biography, all on its own.

I spent last summer doing research, reading interviews & articles on Dr. Fauci, along with his own speeches, papers, and other writings. In the fall, I reached out to his office to request a Zoom interview, knowing it would be probably be a long shot. It was at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, and I was requesting time from possibly the busiest man in the country. But education is essential to public health, and scientists are often generous with their time when it comes to inspiring future scientists. It was worth asking, right?

Dr. Fauci’s office staff at NIAID got back to me that week, and we set up an interview for late November, at the end of one of his long work days. I’d done all of my other research, so I was able to use that time to focus on things that aren’t part of the public record. I asked questions that I knew kids would wonder about, too. Dr. Fauci talked about his childhood, the experiences that shaped him. He talked about his dad’s advice to approach problems with an open mind. About Sunday dinners with his grandfather, an Italian immigrant.

He talked about school and sports, too. How he played stickball in the streets and learned to get along with different kinds of people.

When it came time for illustrator Alexandra Bye to begin her work, I sent along some photographs that Dr. Fauci’s office had shared as references, showing what he looked like at different ages and what his family members looked like. Some of those photos were pretty great – from the high school basketball court and even Dr. Fauci’s first Communion – so we asked for permission to include them in the book’s back matter.

And throughout the illustration process, more questions came up. What color were the uniforms for Dr. Fauci’s high school basketball team? What about their rivals?

The research for a project like this continues through the whole book-making process. I’m in awe of the work Alexandra did to get illustrations ready for a late-June book release and to make sure we got all the details right. If you want to see her amazing art, too, you can pick up a copy of the book at your local bookstore or library.

But let’s talk a little more about interviewing subjects for a biography like this. When I do research, I’m always searching for the seeds of my subject’s future life in their childhood. What formative experiences helped young Anthony grow up to be the Dr. Fauci we see on the news at night? To find out, I ask open-ended questions and then a lot of follow-ups to probe deeper. “What did you do for fun as a kid?” might be followed by something as simple as “Stickball! Would you tell me more about that?” and “Do you remember any games in particular?”

It’s an invitation to reminisce – to take a memory walk among the smells and sounds of childhood, to revisit voices from the past – and when people do that, they inevitably offer the kinds of reflections that come with age and perspective. As he was sharing a memory about his mom, for example, Dr. Fauci paused and then talked about how she’d emphasized, over and over, how everyone deserved respect and had a right to be heard. Having read so much about Dr. Fauci’s career in public health, I was immediately able to connect that to a news article I’d read about a time when AIDS activists protested outside his office – and when the police came, instead of allowing them to break up the demonstration, Dr. Fauci invited the protesters into his office to talk. There are connections between who we were as kids – the experiences we had and the values loved ones shared with us – and the work we do in the world as adults.

This has been an especially trying school year for teachers and librarians. It seemed as if everything was expected of you, and few people stopped to say thank you for keeping kids learning through all of the pandemic’s trauma and uncertainty. So first, I want to say that now. Thank you. Thanks for sharing stories at a time kids needed them most. Thanks for being there on their screens and holding them close with your words and your smiles, when you couldn’t hug them in person. Thanks for providing that measure of love and security and normalcy when everything else felt upside down. And I also want to lead you through a writing prompt that I hope will help you rediscover the roots of why you do what you do, why you chose this essential work.

Imagine that you’re writing a picture book biography of yourself. You have some research to do before you get started, and it begins with an interview. Are you ready?  Find a good spot to conduct this interview, maybe over tea in the kitchen or on the porch, or spread a blanket on the grass outside if you’d like. Open your notebook or laptop. And write for a while in response to these questions.

Tell me about something you liked to do for fun when you were younger. Think about when you were eight years old…twelve years old….fifteen years old.

Now choose one of those pastimes and dig a little deeper. What was it that made you feel alive and happy when you were swimming or playing field hockey or knitting?

Who taught you things that have mattered to you in your calling to work with young people? Can you remember a specific conversation, or a time when someone in your life showed you, by example, what it means to teach and share stories? Capture that moment in as much detail as you can. If there were conversations, see if you can write them out in dialogue.

Now imagine you’re watching a movie of your life story. Rewind to your childhood, and pause the video when you first notice a scene that makes you think “This person will grow up to be a teacher or librarian.” Describe that scene in as much detail as you can. Where are you? Who else is there? What sounds and smells do you notice? What’s said aloud in that space, and what’s unspoken?

If you’d like, you can take this prompt a step further and write a picture book biography – of yourself. Not to publish. Not all the writing we do has an audience beyond ourselves and our families and friends, but that personal writing has just as much value. My hope for you is that today’s writing has reminded you why you do what you do, even in the toughest of years. It’s worth taking time to honor the teacher/librarian/writer that you have become.

You’ll get another writing prompt from me next week, focused on moving forward from here. How do we rebuild after a year of difficulties and doubt? Don’t forget that each Thursday, teacher-writer-coach Jen Vincent hosts our weekly Teachers Write check-in on her blog. Stop by to share goals and reflections and get to know some fellow campers!

Have a great week!

Kate