genre: biographical novel-in-verse
age range: 8 and up
Jeannine’s website

Thoroughly researched, creatively presented, inspiring real-life role models for girls who love math.
— Kirkus Reviews

Written in free verse, the text is welcoming, informative, pithy, wry, very readable, and occasionally haunting. . . A heartening celebration of mathematically gifted women. 
— Booklist

Please tell us about your book.

Grasping Mysteries: Girls Who Loved Math uses verse to introduce readers to seven women who used math in their work studying stars, mapping the ocean, making charts to show the need for social change, or planning space flights.

What inspired you to write this story?

As I researched Finding Wonders: Three Girls Who Changed Science, math kept coming up as a vehicle for understanding, especially in today’s world. The three women profiled in Finding Wonders lived in the 1700s or 1800s, before science shifted from enjoying and understanding nature to learning about underlying patterns. I read articles that contemporary scientists wrote about girls who dream of jobs such as working with animals or improving the environment, then find that a lack of a strong math background holds them back when they reach college. I wanted to show readers age eight and up some of the joy in math to help them approach the subject with more confidence and perhaps delight. Plus women such as Caroline Herschel, Florence Nightingale, Katherine Johnson, and Vera Rubin are amazing!

Could you share with readers how you conducted your research?

Writing about women who love math – or “love” for the most part (we all can get frustrated with what we treasure) was a leap for me. Math was never my favorite subject, since I like detail more than abstraction. Grasping Mysteries isn’t a math book, but based in people, so I did my best to understand basic concepts, then present them in the context of lives which were marked by some people getting in the women’s way while others encouraged them.

What are some special challenges associated with fictionalizing a true story?

In a verse history such as Grasping Mysteries, I honor the facts that are given about someone and use the chronology of their lives as a frame. The fictionalizing comes in through developing scenes that are documented, but not the exact circumstances. I pull on details based on general recollections and invent dialogue using what’s chronicled about peoples’ characters. I lean a lot on setting, going past the biographical sketches to read about and study pictures connected to the time and place where someone lived. I worked against the prejudice some have that math is boring, emphasizing the joy that accomplishment brought.

What topics does your book touch upon that would make it a perfect fit for the classroom?

I love the idea of math teachers and English teachers working together. My hope is that those who love math and those who may be made anxious by math can get together and enjoy stories where math is part of the plot – but there’s plenty of other sorts of drama for those who just want to read about inspiring girls! I hope that includes boys. Everyone can relate to what it’s like to have a dream and deal with those who might stand in one’s way.

age range: 4-8 years
topics / themes: Alzheimer’s Disease
Paulette Sharkey’s website

Please tell us about your book.

A Doll for Grandma: A Story about Alzheimer’s Disease is my debut picture book, for ages 4-8, illustrated by Samantha Woo and published May 5, 2020 by Beaming Books. It’s about a little girl named Kiera who has a special bond with her grandmother. When Grandma develops Alzheimer’s and must move into a memory-care home, Kiera finds that the old ways they played together no longer work. She embraces the changes in Grandma to figure out a new way to connect and sustain their relationship. 

What inspired you to write this story?

According to the Alzheimer’s Association, the disease affects 5.7 million Americans. It’s the sixth leading cause of death in the U.S. With the incidence of Alzheimer’s rising at alarming rates, most children know someone with the disease. I wanted to write a book to help them understand what is happening to their grandparent, aunt, uncle, neighbor. 

The story is personal, too. It grew out of my experiences playing the piano for residents of memory-care homes and from caring for family members with dementia.

Could you share with readers how you conducted your research or share a few interesting tidbits you learned while researching?

I’ve been a volunteer pianist for about 15 years. I play at all kinds of senior facilities, including assisted-living and memory-care. The work is interesting, gratifying, sometimes heartbreaking. I blog about it here. 

Music gives us a powerful way to reach people who have Alzheimer’s. Music can relieve their anxiety and spark memories. Those who can’t recognize family or friends can recognize and respond to music, if it’s the right kind. Even those who can no longer speak can usually sing old, familiar songs. Somehow the music unlocks the lyrics from their long-term memory. We usually have the strongest emotional response to music from our youth. So for my elderly audiences I play a lot of songs from the World War II era.

What are some special challenges associated with writing for children about Alzheimer’s Disease?

While working on A Doll for Grandma, I read every children’s book about Alzheimer’s disease I could find. I’m sorry to say that many were very dry stories that a child would not naturally gravitate toward. I wanted my book to be more accessible. The biggest challenge was making a disease like Alzheimer’s understandable to children. One of my best lines, I think, comes when Kiera’s mother explains what is happening to Grandma by saying, “Grandma’s brain is forgetting how to remember.”

To create the character of Grandma, I drew on things I’d observed in many different people living with Alzheimer’s disease and other dementias—family members I had cared for and people I had played the piano for. Not every person has every symptom. Grandma is a composite I used to show common emotional symptoms (like anger, confusion) and physical symptoms (like fidgeting, difficulties walking).

But there are also lighter moments in the story. Even with dementia, people can experience great joy. A therapy dog scene, for example, came directly from an activity my mother enjoyed in a hospice facility just a few days before she died. And a funny “piano lady” scene in the book is a nod to my own volunteer work. 

What topics does your book touch upon that would make it a perfect fit for the classroom?

A Doll for Grandma would be perfect for the Social Emotional Learning curriculum. The book can be used to open the door to conversations about aging, empathy, kindness, adapting to change, intergenerationality, and accepting and loving people as they are.

I’ve seen how faces light up when children drop by a senior facility, so I hope the book will be used to help children prepare for a visit. A memory-care home is a setting seldom depicted in children’s books. I wanted to show what goes on there so that it could be a little more familiar and a little less frightening.

A Doll for Grandma shows kids how to best interact with people living with some type of dementia: just as they are, without trying to change them or bring them back into our world. Look for ways to connect, to have happy moments. They are still the people we loved before, despite the changes their disease causes. 

age range: 10 and up
genre: contemporary fabulism
Loriel Ryon’s website

An Indies Introduce Top Ten Title
Featured at Publisher’s Weekly’s Winter Institute Roundup
An Indies Next Spring 2020 Title

This heartfelt family saga weaves together science and magic believably and sensitively.
— Kirkus Reviews

A must-have tale, perfect for fans of emotionally resonant magical realism like Karen Strong’s Just South of Home.
— School Library Journal, starred review

Please tell us about your book.

Yolanda Rodríguez-O’Connell has a secret. All the members of her family have a magical gift—all, that is, except for Yolanda. Still, it’s something she can never talk about, or the townsfolk will call her family brujas—witches. When her abuela, Wela, falls into an unexplained sleep, Yolanda is scared. Her father is off fighting in a faraway war, her mother died long ago, and Yolanda has isolated herself from her best friend and twin sister. If she loses her abuela, who will she have left?

When a strange grass emerges in the desert behind their house, Wela miraculously wakes, begging Yolanda to take her to the lone pecan tree left on their land. Determined not to lose her, Yolanda sets out on this journey with her sister, her ex-best friend, and a boy who has a crush on her. But what is the mysterious box that Wela needs to find? And how will going to the pecan tree make everything all right? Along the way, Yolanda discovers long-buried secrets that have made their family gift a family curse. But she also finds the healing power of the magic all around her, which just might promise a new beginning.

What inspired you to write this story?

It started with a memory from my childhood. I must’ve been about 4-5 years old. My mother had taken us to stay with our grandparents for the summer and hired a person to take care of cutting the grass while we were away. But the man only cut the front yard, and didn’t go in the backyard the entire time we were gone. Which was the entire summer. I remember when we finally came home, my grandfather opened the curtains to the sliding glass window and the grass was as tall as our house. I remember standing there in awe, feeling very small and amazed at how tall it was. I even asked my mother recently if that was true or if my childhood memory had made the grass taller than it actually was.

She confirmed that it had been as tall as our house. 

So that image is what I started with when drafting INTO THE TALL, TALL GRASS. What came after changed and evolved over time, but that image of grass and awe stayed the same. 

Could you share with readers how you conducted your research or share a few interesting tidbits you learned while researching?

Originally this story had a lot of science in it, including a family pedigree with genetics. Most of that changed with revisions and editing, but the premise of mitochondrial DNA being the key to the magic did not. Meaning, a little bit of maternal DNA is in all of us from our mothers and daughters pass it on to their children all the way down the line linking everyone. I just find that so fascinating. 

What are some special challenges associated with introducing a setting your audience might be unfamiliar with?

This story takes place in the desert of New Mexico, and many people may not be familiar with that setting. Or they may have ideas of it being quite boring or ugly. At least, I know I did when I found out we were moving here when I was twelve. I had a lot of strange ideas of what I thought it was going to be like. I really wanted to show how beautiful the desert can be, with its beautiful native plants, the changing weather, the vast blue sky. There is so much beauty in the desert and I wanted to bring that to life, with a little bit of magic, for readers. 

What topics does your book touch upon that would make it a perfect fit for the classroom?

Grief and loss, family relationships, friend relationships, finding your footing when coming of age. It does have some hints of STEM in there too.

age range: 12 and up
genre / form: contemporary fiction; verse novel
Betty Culley’s website

Please tell us about your book.

This is the description on the Harper site for the book, which does a great job of summing up what the novel is about:

Life changes forever for Liv when her older brother, Jonah, accidentally shoots himself with his best friend Clay’s father’s gun. Now Jonah needs round-the-clock care just to stay alive, and Liv feels like she’s the only person who can see that her brother is still there inside his broken body. 

With Liv’s mom suing Clay’s family, there are divisions in the community that Liv knows she’s not supposed to cross. But Clay is her friend, too, and she refuses to turn away from him—just like she refuses to give up on Jonah. This powerful novel is a stunning exploration of tragedy, grief, compassion, and forgiveness.

What inspired you to write this story?

My work as a pediatric home health and hospice nurse brought me into the lives of sick and disabled children and their families. The devotion and the resilience of the siblings of these children made a big impression on me, and this story came out of that experience.

Could you share with readers how you conducted your research or share a few interesting tidbits you learned while researching? 

Since the Kennebec River near me plays a big part in the novel, I researched information about the river and, of course, visited it in many different seasons! In my research into the origin of the Abenaki word ‘Kennebec’, I corresponded with Chief Donald Stevens of the Nulhegan Band of the Coosuk-Abenaki Nation, who consulted with his linguist experts about my questions.

There’s a trial in the novel involving ‘negligent entrustment of a firearm’. I spent a day at a local courthouse, observing both the building and the proceedings. I also spoke with a lawyer familiar with the issues involved in negligence cases in Maine.

In the book, Liv’s father worked at the local paper mill until it closed. This is a familiar scene in my area—empty paper mill buildings standing along the Kennebec River. I also talked to a friend who worked as a millwright for the paper company for thirty years, and he explained the process of making paper, from the logs to the finished products!

After Jonah’s accident, Clay drops out of school and works in his father’s business, Bugz Away Pest Management, so I did extensive research into termites, bedbugs, fleas and other creepy, crawly things!

What are some special challenges associated with writing a novel in verse?

Writing in verse makes you really think about the words you choose, and how to tell the story in the most economical and direct way. It felt like the perfect form for Liv’s voice to be heard.

What topics does your book touch upon that would make it a perfect fit for the classroom?

This book has themes of self-education and self-motivated learning, including a fascination by the main character/narrator with the natural world around her.

It touches on how Liv struggles in the classroom after the tragedy, how other students treat her, how her friends rally around her, and how the teachers and administrators try to understand and support her.

Also, it portrays Liv dealing not only with Jonah’s accidental shooting, but the economic difficulties of living in single parent household in a town where one of the main industries — the paper mill — has shut down.