Caroline Starr Rose

picture book and middle-grade author

Classroom Connections: The Mutant Mushroom Takeover by Summer Rachel Short

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age range: 9-12
genre: lightly spooky sci-fi
Summer Rachel Short’s website

Packed to the gills with fun.
— Kirkus Reviews

A fun debut novel with an action-packed climax that will leave readers eager to scope out the weirder side of nature.
— School Library Journal

Please tell us about your book.

The Mutant Mushroom Takeover is a lightly spooky novel about eleven-year-old aspiring naturalist, Magnolia Stone, and her best friend Nate, a conspiracy theorist and wannabe YouTube star. The story takes place in the small town of Shady Pines, Texas and kicks off when Maggie and Nate discover a strange bioluminescent fungus growing in the woods outside of town. At first the mushrooms seem like a natural wonder, but after animals around town start sprouting unusual growths and Maggie’s brother develops a bluish glow and hacking cough, Maggie and Nate wonder what they’ve really stumbled onto. 

As things in Shady Pines become stranger and more dangerous, Maggie must use her scientific smarts and Nate’s impressive knowledge of all things paranormal to put things back in order and prevent these peculiar glowing mushrooms from taking over their home.

What inspired you to write this story?

A couple happenings got me started––one was an idea my son had for a pirate named Root Beard whose beard was made of living tree roots. I started imagining what a character who was part human, part something else might be like which eventually inspired the creation of an important character in the book. The other was an old documentary my kids and I watched called Fungi: The Rotten World About Us. It had all sorts of creepy, fascinating facts about fungi and was a starting point for more research and imagining.

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

I watched videos, checked out library books, and read lots of articles about the unique properties of fungus—there are many! Though it is all around us, it’s a life form most people don’t know much about. The more I read, the more intrigued I became by what I was learning. To illustrate, here are few fun facts about fungus:

  • The largest living organism in the world is a fungus located in Malheur National Forest, Oregon and is nicknamed the Humongous Fungus. It spreads over 2,385 acres and is estimated to weigh between 7,567 and 35,000 tons!
  • Bioluminescent fungi produce their own light and glow neon green, blue, or yellow. They can be found in forests around the world. The phenomenon is also known as Foxfire. 
  • Fungi help trees communicate with one another through a vast underground fungal network. Through the fungus, trees warn each other about diseases and droughts and even direct their roots toward better soil. The network is nicknamed the wood-wide-web.
  • Radiation-loving mushrooms have been used to clean up nuclear disasters in places like Fukushima, Japan. The mushrooms feast on the radiation, thereby absorbing some of the harmful effects of the radiation. 

What are some special challenges associated with mixing real science with fiction?

There are so many fascinating and bizarre happenings in nature but unless we do some digging we don’t always find out about them. In The Mutant Mushroom Takeover, I really wanted to share my own wonder and excitement about all the strange things right under our noses. I know science topics can seem intimidating so my goal was to make this story as accessible as possible. I think one thing that helped with that was the differing interests of my two main characters. Maggie is very into all things sciency, while her best friend Nate wants to discover aliens or Bigfoot and be a big-time YouTube star. They each have their own perspective about the things they bump into––kind of like a middle grade X-Files where one character is sure everything is a paranormal encounter and the other is convinced there’s a scientific explanation. That dynamic brought a lot of humor to the story which helps make the science more relatable and fun. 

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

I think The Mutant Mushroom Takeover can inspire kids to find out more about the amazing and often bizarre natural world around them. There are real-life creatures that are as creepy and fascinating as any monster or alien from TV. I hope that after kids finish reading my book, they’ll have an appetite to discover more about nature’s many mysteries. Maybe some will even take up investigations of their own like Maggie and Nate. 

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Classroom Connections: Beginners Welcome by Cindy Baldwin

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age range: 8-12
genre: contemporary fiction
themes: grief, loss, healing
Cindy Baldwin’s website
Beginners Welcome book trailer

Targeted to kids who sometimes feel invisible or afraid, Baldwin’s prose challenges them to be the bravest and wisest versions of themselves, delivering the message that it is our brokenness that makes us beautiful, not our perfection. 
— School Library Journal (starred review)

Genuine and hopeful, Annie Lee’s story is one of finding courage in tough circumstances, of love and vulnerability, and of the power of music, despite one’s imperfections.
— Booklist

Intermingling themes of grief and loss with moments of unexpected, joyful connection, Baldwin depicts character growth with particular grace.
— Publishers Weekly

Please tell us about your book.

Beginners Welcome is the story of eleven-year-old Annie Lee, who’s starting school a few months after her beloved daddy unexpectedly died and her two best friends drifted away. Annie Lee is determined to stay invisible this year, because invisible people can’t be hurt—but when she meets Mitch, a tough skater girl who may need a friend as much as Annie Lee does, and Ray, an elderly pianist at a local mall whose music creates magic only Annie Lee can see, she starts to wonder if maybe opening herself up to love really is worth it, after all.

What inspired you to write this story?

There were a couple of threads that came together to form this book. The first was one day when my husband had forgotten to rinse the shaving cream out of the bathroom sink after he shaved. The whole bathroom smelled like his shaving cream, and I suddenly started wondering what it would be like if somebody you loved died, but the visceral reminders of their presence—the scents, the sounds, the things that make you know they’re near—stuck around.

I also had this striking image of an old man playing the piano and creating magical lights above it, set in a mall I used to visit in my hometown, which is housed in two old tobacco warehouses and so has a really unique feel.

And finally, I wanted to explore the tension between experiencing loss and deciding to connect with others, even knowing that it makes you vulnerable. Although I didn’t lose a parent like Annie Lee, I was a young teenager when I learned that my disease, cystic fibrosis, was fatal. At the time, it carried a life expectancy of 34 years. I spent much of my teen years wrestling with the question of how a person can fully invest themselves in life, knowing that it will probably end early. Although Annie Lee’s situation is different, it gave me a chance to delve into that dynamic, which I think is a real hallmark of the human condition.

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

Beginners Welcome is the only book I’ve ever written (so far) that’s set in a real town—my hometown of Durham, North Carolina. Because it’s a real place, I wanted to get details as accurate and realistic as I could. Although I grew up there, I haven’t lived there in many years, and so I spent a LOT of time on Google Maps! I plotted distances from one location to another, looked at lots of satellite pictures, and even spent a long time “driving” through Google Street View on all the routes Annie Lee takes on her scooter, so that I could accurately describe what she sees as she scooters and how it changes from one area to the next. It was such a bittersweet, nostalgic experience to spend all that time “driving” the streets I used to travel all the time as a kid and teen, but now only get to visit once a year or so in non-pandemic times. It made me very grateful for the incredible tools that writers have at their fingertips these days!

What are some special challenges associated with writing middle grade fiction about heavy topics?

Both my debut novel, Where the Watermelons Grow, and Beginners Welcome focus on kids who are going through extraordinarily difficult experiences—in Watermelons, it’s a parent’s schizophrenia, and in Beginners it’s the loss of a father. As a writer, I find myself drawn toward stories like this a lot, because I spent my tween and teen years wrestling with problems that felt very adult and very different from those of my friends. Tween me felt so isolated and alone in her experiences, and whenever I sit down, I think about all the eleven-year-olds out there who feel equally isolated in their lives and need a reminder that they’re not the only one going through something big and tough.

However, that kind of writing definitely takes a toll! Especially with Beginners Welcome, because it was my second published book and second books are hard, I really struggled with the emotional heaviness of the topic as I wrote. I had to focus a lot on the initial ideas that had sparked the book and the excitement I’d felt to write it. I also worked hard on giving Annie Lee some lighthearted side plot lines, like the egg drop experiment she and Mitch are working on for science class, to help the book avoid getting bogged down in sadness.

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

Besides the always-needed issues of loss, grief, and healing, Beginners Welcome is very connected to school! One of the main subplots concerns Annie Lee’s science class, and how she and Mitch are discovering the scientific method through an egg drop project. I’ve always felt like it would be so cool to see students read the book and try their own egg drop contraptions as well!

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The Book Whisperer: Continuing the Conversation with Donalyn Miller

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Read part one here.

You believe “Reading is both a cognitive and emotional journey.” Can you speak to this idea?  

At one level, reading is a skill that can be taught and learned. How to locate information, analyze a plot, or decode vocabulary — these reading skills are necessary and can be learned. Everyone who is literate has these skills to some degree. Beyond reading skills, we cannot overlook or discount reading’s emotional, spiritual, and intellectual value — discovering things about ourselves and the world that we didn’t know, learning from the accomplishments and failures of others, inspiring action, and expanding our knowledge. If children do not develop this aesthetic connection to reading, they won’t see reading as anything but a skill. I believe that basic literacy is important, of course, but I think education should do more than teach workplace applicable skills. Education should teach students to question and provide them with the tools they need to find their own answers.  

How might a teacher with a heavily scheduled day find time to add in independent reading?  

I know that there is never enough time to teach what we are expected to teach under the time constraints given. I get it. If I cannot find evidence-based and research-proven reasons for using a particular activity or tool, I don’t use it. I don’t have time to waste on activities that don’t benefit students’ growth as readers, writers, and thinkers. I take the minimum number of grades my district requires. There is no busy work. We read. We write. We share and talk about reading and writing. That is it. It is very liberating, actually.

I suggest that all teachers critically evaluate every activity they are doing to determine whether or not it moves students toward independence or just more school. Independent reading has more influence on students’ long-term reading achievement than any other activity. Why would we put it last? I recommend that students read every day for a minimum of 15 minutes. Divide your class into thirds-1/3 for independent reading and conferences, 1/3 for mini-lesson and guided practice, and 1/3 for more reading and more writing.  

Catching the reading bug: I loved hearing about all the ways your kids bring reading into their everyday lives. Tell us about your student who once read in the shower!  

Ah, that was Molly. She was desperately trying to finish a book, but her mom kept calling down the hall for her to get in the shower. Realizing that she couldn’t hold off her mom until she finished the book, Molly held the book out of the shower to keep it dry and kept reading it.  

You have an extensive classroom library largely run by your students. I’m curious if you find certain titles “have legs” — seem to wander away more so than others. In my room my Shel Silverstein and Sara Holbrook poems had to be replaced often. What about you?  

When I taught middle school, the books that “walked” the most were Smile by Raina Telgemeir, the Skeleton Creek series, Bone graphic novels, Clique by Lisi Harrison, Hatchet by Gary Paulsen, and innumerable copies of The Hunger Games and The Lightning Thief. I imagine that many of these books are sitting on shelves in a former student’s home. I hope they are. Every once in awhile, a younger sibling returns books that were discovered. I enjoy reading the apology notes attached. I think my books have more adventurous lives than I do.  

When I taught I hosted an annual Book Auction. Kids would donate books they no longer wanted. I gave all my students five “dollars,” whether they donated or not, and those who donated got an extra dollar for each title they brought in. At the end of the day, everyone went home with a pile of new-to-them books. What are some other creative ways a teacher might get books in kids’ hands?  

I love your book auction idea. We held school-wide book swaps at my previous school. Students and families donated books and received coupons for each title. During the swap, kids could take home a book for every coupon. We gave away extra coupons, so that every child had one. Extra books were donated to charity book drives.  

As I read The Book Whisperer, I kept wondering if you’d read Daniel Pennac’s The Rights of the Reader. And you have! Which of these rights do you think are hardest for kids to embrace? For teachers?

For students, it’s hard for them to see these rights as normal reading behaviors. They have been told by adults that skipping pages, abandoning books, rereading favorites, and not reading sometimes are negative behaviors. We spend a lot of time during the early weeks of school discussing these rights and sharing our experiences with them. For teachers, I think that accepting times when students just don’t feel like reading is normal. When a student actively avoids reading all of the time, this is cause for concern, but some days are OK. I notice that my students don’t want to start another book right away when they have recently finished a great one. I encourage students to spend their reading time writing a recommendation or reflection about the book instead, or researching the author’s other work.     

“Every lesson, conference, response, and assignment I taught must lead students away from me and toward their autonomy as literate people.” Can you talk briefly about the ways you use reader’s notebooks and one-on-one conferences in your room and how they build autonomy?

John Dewey said, “We do not learn from experience. We learn from reflecting on experience.” I think that notebooks and conferences provide a formal way for students to collect information about their reading and reflect on their experiences. In their notebooks, students record the books they read, notes from lessons and research, and their reading responses. When we confer, I usually begin the conversation with what the students are currently reading and move into looking through notebooks for trends in reading behavior, as well as strengths and goals. My students and I develop individual goals for their reading during these conferences.

You don’t use the terms struggling or reluctant readers but instead identify readers as developing, dormant, and underground. Could you define for us what these readers are like and what they most need?

Developing readers lack reading confidence, experience, or ability, but are somewhere on the path toward developing reading self-efficacy. I prefer this term to struggling readers because development implies progress and effort instead of failure.

Dormant readers possess the grade and age levels abilities expected from them at school, but don’t find reading personally meaningful beyond school expectations. I find that most of my students are dormant readers. They haven’t experienced enough pleasure or engagement with reading.

Underground readers are avid readers who live two reading lives–one at school and one outside of school. These children are often avid readers who may underperform on school reading assignments because they don’t find them meaningful. They may not fill out reading logs, participate in whole class discussions, or complete reports, then excel on reading tests.

I think there are other types of readers who don’t express these marked habits and abilities, but I chose to write about these types because these the students that benefit most from free choice voluntary reading and more classroom choice.

“Students need to receive encouragement for the skills and knowledge they do have and be allowed to make mistakes as they work toward mastery.” What are some “mistakes” you’ve seen kids afraid to make? How have you helped liberate them from this fear?

Reading is hard because so much of it involves subjective interpretation. Kids who want to get it right struggle when I push them to determine their own meaning for a text. They want me to tell them what it means. They want explicit answers to every question. When we read shared texts, we look at the basic plot events or main ideas first, then delve into the deeper meanings or implications of a text. This assures everyone understands the universal meaning or key points before exploring personal connections and meanings. I think this values all of the learners in my class.

I also share my mistakes and misconceptions with students. They don’t realize that even the most experienced readers and writers need to reread, revise, and mull over ideas.

Thank you, Donalyn, for your time and your commitment to young readers. Find out more about Donalyn and her books at BookWhisperer.com.

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