Preliminary Remarks:
The Nerdy Book Club website’s banner is so inviting! It is just fun to look at and the colors are so pleasing – an inviting world all by itself. Beautiful!
Introductory Remarks:
I am sitting in my living room on a beautiful blustery autumn day with my son who is home from school with a fever. He is one voracious reader, that kid. Being sick is considerably more doable if you really like to read.
The Meat and Potatoes:
For most of my life, I was not aware that people have vastly different levels of reading ability. I was a decent reader myself, good enough to not feel any headwinds, so I took it for granted that most people were more or less the same.
When I would visit schools as an author/illustrator, I felt like there should be some educational purpose to my visit, but I wasn’t sure what my message should be. From the very top of my head I thought; “I should encourage kids to read a lot. Yeah, that’s it. They always have posters in libraries that say, ‘READ,’ and kids have to read at school. Why, I’ll be a cheerleader for reading. Everybody will like that!”
In my presentation, I would ask the students what books they liked and I told them what books I liked and I tried to be generally positive about reading. Rah! Rah! Rah! Go Reading!
But then I started a part-time job tutoring kids with Dyslexia and similar reading challenges. I got trained in the Orton-Gillingham approach, where, in a multifaceted, multi-sensory way, you explain how our language works, starting with basic concepts and working toward more complex concepts (of which English has plenty). It is systematic and tailored to each student.
I was moved by how hard it was for my students to read and how ashamed they were that they couldn’t make their brains do it. In the first sessions the weight of that frustration can be quite heavy, some students complain, some throw things, one student silently cried while he tried to make sense of the mess of text in front of him. Then, usually around the tenth session that weight begins to lift. They begin to notice that they are actually reading and spelling words that used to stymie them. They are proud of their achievement and then we are off to the races.
Now when I visit schools, I try to acknowledge and encourage the students who struggle with reading. It isn’t very smooth right now, but somehow, I want to weave that message into my presentation, so those kids know that I am speaking to them too.
The New Book
Mushroom Lullaby is a bed-time book, my first one and there are more coming. When my son was a tiny kid with adorable, big cheeks, he would sit on my lap and I would read this kind of book to him. That is when I discovered how useful a good slowing-down book is. It is not just for the child, it is for the adult too. It was as good for me as it was for him to be drawn into a book and through it into a world of calm.
That is what I attempted with Mushroom Lullaby. It begins in a factual tone:
This is a mushroom that grows in the park.
This is a mushroom that glows in the dark.
Here is a mushroom up high in the sky.
Here is a mushroom that never stays dry.
Then the narrator speaks more directly to the reader:
And here is a mushroom made just for you.
Your friends can come too…
And so the reader is invited into a small quiet spot among the grasses and then into a mushroom house and then into a mushroom bed. The story ends with a kind of blessing:
May you have sweet dreams, a soft rest,
and a very good night.
Epilogue
It is after lunch now, I am back in the living room. The blustery day got rainy and then sunny. My son is laying on the sofa, reading.
It seems like I should be able to somehow connect all these things that I have been writing about, but the only thing I can think of is benevolence. We adults want to give good things to the kids. Not always, of course, but at our best we want to smooth out the way for them and help them along. That impulse is strong in children’s literature. We are writing for them and we are reading to them, for their wellbeing. I am happy to be a part of such a community.
Kenneth Kraegel is the author-illustrator of the picture books Green Pants and King Arthur’s Very Great Grandson, which was named a New York Times Book Review Notable Children’s Book of the Year, as well as the board book This Is a Book of Shapes and the first chapter book Wild Honey from the Moon. He lives in Grand Rapids, Michigan, with his family.