Page 7 – Maya Smart

Ashley Valentine of Rooted MKE, a BIPOC children’s bookstore in Milwaukee, brings experience as a former teacher, tutoring company founder, and mom of two young children to her family literacy work. So I couldn’t wait to ask for her best early literacy tips for parents.

In our far-ranging chat, her depth of expertise shines through in her discussion of topics including:

The best books to read with kids at each age and stage
What to keep in mind when selecting books for kids to read for themselves
Ways to tell if a book is too challenging for a reader to tackle independently
How parents can know if their child needs additional reading support
How to find community-based assessment and tutoring services if your child struggles with reading

Watch the video (or scroll down to read the transcript) to get her advice.

Maya Smart: Hello, I'm so excited to be here today chatting with Ashley Valentine, owner of Rooted MKE, a really lovely children's bookstore in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Ashley, thanks for joining me today.

Ashley Valentine: Thank you for having me.

Maya Smart: Obviously, the books in your store range in age from books that are appropriate for babies all the way to books that would be a great fit for teens and even adults. Can you describe in general the kinds of books that you think parents should think about providing at different ages and stages?

Ashley Valentine: For small, little ones, so like baby to maybe two-year-olds, board books are always awesome, because it gives kids the opportunity to manipulate the book and use a book as a baby is going to use a book, so you don’t have to be careful about the pages. They can’t eat the book, it’s not consumable, but they can nibble on it a little bit. It’s not going to be destroyed. The words are usually bigger. A lot of sensory goes into the board books depending on the title that you choose. So it gives your child the opportunity to feel texture, to hear different sounds in the book.

And for, I would say, three to—three to five, board books are appropriate for, as well, because three-year-olds are not necessarily learning to read, they’re learning to associate letters with sounds. So just understanding that letters make sounds that eventually form words.

And although three-year-olds and younger kids who are getting ready for preschool are not actually physically reading books, they are showing reading readiness skills. So if you’ve been reading a book for four nights at bedtime and then you notice that your toddler is starting to repeat the words in the sequence that they go, and they can point to the words and say what that word is, are they reading because they’ve looked at the letters and identified that this makes this sound and I’m putting the sounds together? No, but they are memorizing the words in the book and that’s an early reading-readiness skill.

I would say second to fourth grade are when those hardcover picture books or soft-cover picture books are a perfect fit. It gives the kid the opportunity to read and practice their reading while using some of the rich illustrations to help support them as they’re sounding out words and trying to figure out what words mean. So being able to use pictures to support with figuring out what words are, and then the pictures also help to tell the story. So although they’re not necessarily working on comprehension, they’re internalizing what the author’s message is through the illustration.

Middle-grade chapter books are always awesome because it gives a younger student, so maybe a first through—no, a second through a fourth-grade student, the ability to begin to read a chapter book even if they’re not a really strong reader. It looks like a chapter book. It’s consumed like a chapter book, so it’s getting them used to the idea of reading a book that’s more text-heavy than picture-heavy.

Everybody loves graphic novels. At least students love graphic novels, and I think that’s an awesome segue from looking at a picture book into starting to read books that are more heavy in text. Although graphic novels don’t have as much text as a chapter book, it’s a lot of pages, so a lot of information to consume and it gets an early chapter book reader accustomed to looking at the information on the pages and internalizing it to receive the message because there’s not so much wording. So they have to start to make inferences around what’s happening and what they think is going to happen next and making predictions because it’s providing you with pictures, but the pictures don’t give you every single detail. You’ve got to use some of your own background knowledge to put the story together.

I think at that point you get into the chapter books and you get into young adult titles and young adult titles are perfect for reluctant teenagers or even adults. I love reading a young adult title because I feel like the commitment to reading the book is not as intense. I don’t have to choose this massive book that I may or may not finish. A young adult title is typically easy to read, a leisurely read, and it still tells a beautiful story and it’s very accessible.

Maya Smart: And so when parents walk into your store and they're looking to find a book for a gift for, maybe not even a special occasion, but they're looking for something for their child, what are some of the things they should think about when making that selection, beyond the child's age?

Ashley Valentine: What is your kid into? Parents often come in and they’re like, “My kid doesn’t like to read. Which book is going to be a good fit?” Well, if they don’t like to read and you pop up at the house with a book, then you haven’t taken in consideration what they enjoy or where are they in life. What journey are they on right now? Are they embracing their natural hair? Are they joining a new club? Are they really heavy into sneakers? Are they building friend groups and dealing with some tension amongst their friend groups? Places where kids can make a connection to the book is where they’re excited about reading the book and they’re going to read it beyond the time that you allocate if you have reading time in your home. So connecting a book with something that your kid enjoys or a theme or idea that your child is into is helpful in supporting the kid in making their own personal connection with the book.

And then I would also consider, not necessarily what grade they’re in, but when they’re reading in their leisure time, what do those books look like? So how much text is on a page, and you can just pull a book that you think your kid is interested in and having the kid with you and doing a five-finger check. So reading a book and you’re counting the errors. So if there are words on the page that you don’t know and you get to five at the end of the page, then that book is probably too difficult. The goal is to be reading books, if it’s a leisurely read, with one to three errors per page, because it’s a strong likelihood that you’re understanding what you’re reading if you’re getting most of the words correct. So opening up a book, reading one page, and if by the end of the page you’ve got five fingers up, then that book may be too difficult. And you don’t want to go by grade level, because not everyone is performing to the same standards.

So grade level is not an indication all the time of if a book is appropriate. That’s why I like having kids come in and do a five finger check if they don’t feel like they’re a confident reader, they can do that on their own, sitting in the store or sitting in the window, read a book to yourself, and then they’re monitoring and tracking their own fingers to be able to tell, is this book too hard for me? And if it is, then we can steer them in the direction of a book that may be easier for them to read and that’ll encourage them to want to read if it’s something that they know that they can do independently.

Maya Smart: So if it's a younger child, they might be reading aloud and the parent could track the errors, or if it's an order child that's reading silently, they kind of have to have the awareness of, oh, I hit a snag there and raise a finger.

Ashley Valentine: I would say parents are just as capable of supporting kids in reading as anyone else. It doesn’t necessarily look the same as what a classroom teacher is doing in a formal classroom setting, but anytime that you’re spending with literacy and around reading with your kid is supporting them in reading. So the level of support that a parent has to offer a kid is just as high and oftentimes more impactful than a stranger, because the kid is at home and spending time with you every day.

So any encouragement that you’re able to offer, any opportunity you have to celebrate your kid around reading, I think is really beneficial. And it definitely helps kids feel like, I can do this. You would be surprised how many kids go through a whole tutoring session and they’re so excited about all of the victories that have happened during the session and they’re like, “Can I go outside and get my mom and then we can reread this page so my mom can see?” Because kids are excited for their parents to see like, Hey, I can do this. And they want their parent to be involved in the victories around literacy, because they may not experience that at school. So home provides another safe space just to celebrate the things that a kid can do, even if they’re not performing where you think they should be.

Maya Smart: Celebrate what they can do. That is a wonderful reminder for every parent. You were a fourth-grade reading teacher. Parents are often told that K through third grade is learning to read, and then fourth grade and beyond is reading to learn. Can you explain to parents what should be happening in those earlier grades so that a child might be ready to read to learn, and if you even agree with that notion of third grade being critical?

Ashley Valentine: I think in practice that is what I’ve experienced as an educator. So first through third is where kids are learning their letter sounds and blending and how to piece together the different parts of a word in order to spell words and understand what those words mean and just be able to say the words. So definitely the learning how to make sense of the letters, because the letters then turn into individual sounds that turn into blended sounds that turn into words.

Once you get to fourth grade, a lot of that foundational early-reading skill development doesn’t happen anymore, and it is true that you’re looking at stories and you’re reading stories with the expectation that the students have all of their foundational literacy skills. And now we’re having conversations about what we’re reading and how can we connect to the things we’re reading, and we’re answering literal questions about the things that the author says in the books and inferential questions. So that’s when you’re bringing in your own knowledge and understanding and background knowledge about the world and what’s happening around you to be able to infer what the author is talking about when it’s not literally spelled out in front of you on the page.

And many, many of my students struggled in the fourth grade because when you’re still learning how to read and unfamiliar with letter sounds when they’re no longer in isolation, but you’re putting the letter sounds togethers and all of these different phonemic awareness skills where you go from being able to hear sounds to manipulating sounds, if students don’t have stronger foundations in those areas, you start to really see that in the fourth grade when we’re no longer working on those things in literacy stations. So typically in the classroom you’re working on those things in smaller groups, either with an educator or developing the skill with an educator and going off into a small-group setting and practicing those skills with your peers.

So if you haven’t participated or if you haven’t grasped those tasks, then when we’re moving to starting to have deeper conversations, you’re lost and you’re not able to engage in the conversation if you have not had this story read to you. So I think it gets really complicated once you get in the fourth grade if you are lacking a lot of those early-literacy skills because it’s really showing and there’s nowhere to hide it anymore because of the reading that’s happening is the kids reading. And it’s a lot less of the read-alouds and more of the kids reading with their peers and doing kind of whole-group reading situations. And it’s harder to hide that you don’t have the skill when you must have the skill to be able—it’s like the barrier to entry. If you’re not reading well, then you’re definitely not able to answer the questions or articulate your understanding well.

Maya Smart: And so as a teacher, you experienced having kids in your class who weren't there and, to use your phrasing, it was showing, and so you took your free time to try to help them build those foundational skills so they could take better advantage of all that was happening in the classroom.

Ashley Valentine: Yes, because there’s then no more time to teach those skills, because so much of the time is centered around, okay, we need to make sure that they’re understanding what they’re reading and able to answer the comprehension questions. So the time that you would be spending teaching those skills is no longer embedded in a reading class. Instead it’s time that’s devoted to intervention or you’ve got to find the time in some other block of time if that exists throughout the school day.

Maya Smart: And then at some point in the higher grades, there isn't even a reading class or just the subject matter classes and probably fewer people in the building, once you get into middle school and high school, that as teachers have the experience of knowing how to teach the foundational things, so that just gets harder and harder. Can you talk about how your bookstore on one hand provides wonderful children's literature for kids to enjoy on their own or with their family and then also the tutoring side of the business?

Ashley Valentine: Yes. In the development of the plan, I knew that I had to offer some sort of way for all students to have access to the books that are in the store. And I wanted families to know that reading a book or getting your kid a book shouldn’t always just be a one-time experience. It’s okay to revisit books lots of times and have conversations around a book several times, and that those conversations don’t always have to be the same. When you read a book the first time and you read a book a second time, you could take away two completely different messages or two different themes and ideas, so that the idea of revisiting a book is just as important as getting a book and reading it together for the first time.

So I took all of my knowledge as a classroom teacher knowing that all kids don’t come in with all of the foundational skills needed to be strong readers, and I knew that I needed to support that through the tutoring. So we do offer a lot of one-on-one and very small groups. So up to three-student focused literacy support, where kids are coming in for 55-minute sessions and we are working on the skills that we see they need support in once we do a consultation.

Maya Smart: Do you find that schools have the capabilities to provide that one-on-one and small-group, or it's limited?

Ashley Valentine: I think that’s a difficult question. In some spaces where schools have more funding and more staff, there doesn’t seem to be an issue with being able to provide small-group or individualized support where students have skill deficits, and then in other schools where the funding may not be as robust and they’re having staffing shortages, the idea of reallocating staff to support one student when there are 20 students in a classroom seems unbearable, but I feel like at the same time, where there is a priority, then things somehow happen in a school. So where a school decides what’s going to be critical for the year, what they’re going to prioritize, resources are allocated to uplift whatever that vision is for a school.

So if we were able to think more creatively about how students are getting support (and that doesn’t mean just putting them in front of a warm body with a packet that says “reading” and that individual not having any understanding of how to deliver high quality reading instruction to a kid), any ability that we have to get kids in front of adults who are trained and prepared to deliver the instruction is going to prove to be valuable, because we’re seeing in test scores nationwide that students are struggling, black and brown students especially, with literacy.

So we have to do something different than what we’re doing if we want to see true gains for those students, because whatever we’re doing, it’s not working, if we’re looking at data.

Maya Smart: What advice would you give to parents who are unsure of if their child is where they need to be in any given grade level? How, as a parent, do you find out if your child is on track, and where should you seek additional support if you think they're behind?

Ashley Valentine: When we’re looking at if students are performing where they need to be, students take standardized tests at school on a fairly frequent basis. Although that’s not the end-all, be-all, because it doesn’t always capture the best of a student, depending on lots of different variables that we are not able to control, that’s a starting point. If we’re seeing things that are in the red, if we’re seeing where national averages and norms are and your student is very far away from what those norms are when you’re looking at different charts, then I think that’s an indication that your student may need some additional support.

I think when you’re spending time with your kids at home and you’re reading—reading together is not just an activity that’s for little kids, all families and all kids in the family and parents as well benefit from spending time together, immersed in literacy.

That could look like reading a recipe together. That could look like going to the grocery store and reading a list together, and sending kids to go get something off of the list and seeing what they bring back. Some of it is visual and kids being able to recognize the things that you use in your household, but some of it is also forcing them to read and pay attention to the sugar-free gelatin as compared to the jello that has sugar.

So even small differences where kids are needing to read or process the information through reading, you can see how is my kid doing with receiving this sort of information? And then how are they able to articulate their understanding? How are they comprehending what they’re reading to be able to share that with me? And that could be just asking a kid, “What did you do today?”

So even analyzing how they process things. If you notice that your kid consistently is unable to share, even a small detail, or the details are out of order, then that could be something that you want to explore further, and then start to do activities at home where you’re playing word game or games that have them to read something and then say something. So what I encourage parents to do is just spend time with literacy. And it doesn’t have to be an additional thing that you add to your day. It could be just adding a five-minute activity to the things that you’re already doing, that encourages your kid to look at something and read it and share what they understood based on what they read. And that’s something that families can do together.

If parents are seeing that there are lots of skill deficits and they’re concerned about where their student is performing, I think seeing a professional is a first step. And at the same time, I don’t know that a lot of parents have positive experience with educational systems, so I understand how that could be intimidating and give you anxiety and make you feel like if public school or the educational system didn’t work well for you, how can you expect something different for your kid?

So seeing a professional doesn’t mean necessarily going to a school, but working with a local nonprofit that’s literacy-based or going to a literacy support center out in your community is definitely a tool that can help you gauge where your kid is and then give you a better understanding of what supports they can offer or a team can offer to help meet some of the goals that you have for your family as well.

Maya Smart: Thank you so much.

Ashley Valentine: Thank you.

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Milwaukee, Wisconsin, is home to some of the nation’s most striking reading disparities between children of color and white children. The 2022 National Assessment of Educational Progress found that black students in the city had an average score that was 50 points lower than that of white students. Hispanic students had an average score that was 35 points lower. The opportunity gap among the groups is so extreme that it will take effort from every corner of the city to give families the necessary support, knowledge, access to books, and high-quality reading instruction and intervention to turn things around.

One of my favorite efforts to address the challenge is Rooted MKE, a BIPOC children’s bookstore owned and operated by Ashley Valentine, a former teacher. Bringing thoughtfully curated children’s literature to the community is a beautiful mission in and of itself, but Rooted MKE is also so much more than a bookstore. It’s part makerspace and academic support center, too—Ashley calls it a “literacy hub for families.” Milwaukee needs this kind of community literacy initiative times one thousand to thrive.

A former teacher, Ashley shared the inspiration behind her impressive venture, plus:

Why reading education shouldn’t happen only at school, and how Rooted MKE is taking it to the community.
How many times you (and your kids) should read a book, and why.
What it is about owning books—in addition to borrowing them—that matters, especially for underserved kids.
The surprising ways that picture books can spark valuable and sometimes uncomfortable conversations and reflection among grownups, too.

Watch our conversation below (or scroll down for the transcript) and then let me know your thoughts!

Maya Smart: Hello, I'm so happy to be joined today by Ashley Valentine, the owner of Rooted MKE, a really phenomenal space in Milwaukee, Wisconsin that combines tutoring and programs with book-selling for children. Ashley, welcome.

Ashley Valentine: Hi. Thank you for having me.

Maya Smart: Now, I described Rooted MKE as a combination of bookstore and tutoring and also programs for the community, but how would you describe it? In a nutshell?

Ashley Valentine: I would describe Rooted MKE as a BIPOC-centered literacy hub for families.

Maya Smart: Literacy hub for families. Sounds like my kind of place. Tell us a bit about how you came to create a physical location in Milwaukee.

Ashley Valentine: I think creating the space came out of me nurturing myself and having a desire to do something for my community that offered an alternative option to literacy support and literacy education.

Maya Smart: Why is it important for families to have a literacy hub?

Ashley Valentine: I think it’s important because the idea that kids learn at school is—it misses so many of the other opportunities that kids could have for learning in the community and learning amongst people who are not teachers, but learning amongst family members and friends. If you isolate reading to one setting, then kids start to envision being readers only in that specific space or when it’s set up in similar ways to that. So I think it’s important to highlight that reading is something that happens outside of the classroom. It can happen with your parents, it can happen with strangers, and reading can be an opportunity to have a collective experience with people who you may not see in other opportunities or in other avenues and still be important and still take away lessons that don’t require you to take a test afterwards to prove what you learned, but things that you could apply in your everyday experience.

Maya Smart: I love that idea of giving kids other opportunities to think about reading and literacy outside of school and, because for in all of our lives, reading is kind of interwoven into everything that we do as—most everything we do as adults. And you're right, after a certain point, most of your reading will take place out of school, so you might as well get familiar with it and the joy of it and love of it and other contexts as well. Can you tell us a bit just about your journey to bookstore ownership? I know that in a previous life you were a teacher in a traditional school setting. How did you end up where you are now?

Ashley Valentine: Yes. So I started out in elementary school teaching fourth-grade reading as my first year. And from there I went into teaching middle school and focusing more on students who have special needs. So teaching in a cross-categorical setting where the kids come in for support towards their IEP goals. But most of the support is in an inclusive classroom setting. I absolutely loved teaching and working with youth in that special-education setting where it’s a lot more focused on the kids who need a higher level of support. Although I appreciated the work, I always felt like there was so much more that I wasn’t even uncovering in the time that I spent with students. And I could be advancing on so many more goals or serving the needs of so many more students who had not technically been recognized as students with special needs, but would always ask me could they join in on sessions or reach out to me at other times during the day to get additional support.

And it was in those moments and through analyzing data and test scores and making decisions about who gets intervention and support, that it felt like almost all the kids needed a higher level of support than what was being offered to them throughout the regular school day. So I spent a lot of time supplementing that support in an afterschool space in what would’ve been my free time inviting kids to sign up for afterschool tutoring. And that was a labor of love for me and a service that I was offering to students completely free of charge. So having kids sign up at least two times a week to get really small groups, so probably three kid or less, or one-on-one academic support in the area of reading, because my specialty and my teaching certification is in reading. And then of course, once you start doing something in the outside of school space, that starts to take on more of your time.

And the idea that I was spending time with my partner or going to parties, or doing whatever it was I wanted to do in the afterschool space wasn’t happening because I had dedicated all of myself to trying to make more significant gains in the classroom and try to help students to feel more comfortable and confident in their skills and abilities in ways that I knew they were not getting if I wasn’t offering the support. And I started to feel depressed and overwhelmed and anxious and just heavy thinking about the daunting task of trying to reach fourth- or fifth-grade students who are reading at a second-grade level and only getting these very finite moments with me in an afterschool space, knowing that there had to be more that could be offered to them that wasn’t so much of me giving my individual self.

They needed a structure or some sort of greater level of support that was beyond what I could offer as an individual. And it was in those moments that Rooted MKE was kind of manifested as a dream. If all the stars aligned and I could be doing something different, what would I be doing? And owning the bookstore is what kind of grounded me and gave me peace in moments where I didn’t have clarity about what my future would look like as an educator. So it was a lot of me planning the bookstore in my spare time or on vacations, planning what does an ideal work situation for me look like in a journal. And that’s how Rooted MKE was really born and nurtured through being kind of a space of uplifting and growing for myself when I didn’t have that in the external spaces that I was working in.

And then as I started to have children, the idea of spending more of my time doing things that truly bought me joy and were of great impact in my community got even louder in my head and bigger in my soul. So I decided after having my daughter that I was going to go all in and try to make these several journals at this point of ideas and plans, a real viable business. And I knew that the need was there because I still had continued tutoring and keeping up with families over the years. And Rooted MKE opened in March of this year.

Maya Smart: Wow. Congratulations on bringing the journals to life, can you talk about how your bookstore on one hand provides wonderful children's literature for kids to enjoy on their own or with their family and then also the tutoring side of the business?

Ashley Valentine: So I think in the development of the plan, I knew that I had to offer some sort of way for all students to have access to the books that are in the store. And I wanted families to know that reading a book or getting your kid a book shouldn’t always just be a one-time experience. It’s okay to revisit books lots of times and have conversations around a book several times, and that those conversations don’t always have to be the same. When you read a book the first time and you read a book the second time, you could take away two completely different messages or two different themes and ideas so that the idea of revisiting a book is just as important as getting a book and reading it together for the first time. So I took all of my knowledge as a classroom teacher knowing that all kids don’t come in with all of the foundational skills needed to be strong readers, and I knew that I needed to support that through the tutoring.

Ashley Valentine: So we do offer a lot of one-on-one and very small groups. So up to three student focused literacy support where kids are coming in for 55-minute sessions and we are working on the skills that we see they need support in once we do a consultation. So in the consultation session, we’re looking at phonemic awareness, phonological awareness, we’re looking at what letter sounds do they know, what letter sounds do they need support with, what blends or what pieces of the words give them a hard time? And then creating a roadmap for the semester. And we use the roadmap that we’ve developed in the consultation to support the students in meeting those goals and applying them to reading books and answering questions so that when they leave the tutoring session, they’re able to leave with skills that they can use immediately to help them either at home or in the classroom and give them a little bit more confidence about how they feel as a reader on their journey of becoming a better reader.

Maya Smart: When you were setting out on this journey for yourself, did you ever consider becoming a librarian or was there something about book ownership and curating your own space that appealed to you?

Ashley Valentine: I never thought about being a librarian really, because I knew that meant I was going to have to go back to school again. [Laughs] I was not interested in any more student loans, but I am also a really strong believer that black and brown kids need to own books. You get opportunities to borrow books at school and from the library, and the level of excitement you have when something actually belongs to you as compared to it belonging to someone else, I thought was really, really important. When I think about the experience of black and brown kids in Milwaukee, we know that not many black and brown people own homes. So just owning something as a kid and growing up knowing that something can belong to just you and it was brand new and it didn’t belong to someone before you, and this was intended for you to have in a brand-new state and you invested a little piece of yourself to have it was important to me.

Maya Smart: Oh, I love that idea of ownership and having something that's yours that you've chosen and treasure. Can you talk about how that idea of those books going home to be owned by children of color, how that affect how you curate the books that are available in your store?

Ashley Valentine: I’m very, very intentional and probably too meticulous about curating collections in the store, because I know whatever I choose and whatever’s in the store is going to be showcased for at least two or three months. So it’s like every book needs to be important and every book needs to be able to resonate with a black or brown kid. I think is a place where I can get too caught in the weeds because I want to make sure that I’m really thoughtful and intentional and that the wrong book doesn’t make it on the shelf for two months.

So it is a lot of me researching and reading what’s coming out, what bodies of work are upcoming, what are classic titles that kids may not have been introduced to, what are some titles that are not brand new but still highlight black and brown characters and spotlight black and brown protagonists. And then what stories are amplifying voices that we don’t hear too often. So kind of putting together this soup of different types of books with different themes and different ideas, hoping that when kids come in, something resonates with them and gets them excited about the books that we have in the store.

Maya Smart: Do you think that most of the people who visit the store recognize the length you've gone through to curate the selection? Is that part of what attracts people to your store in particular, or what do you think brings people in through the door?

Ashley Valentine: I think the idea that all of the books highlight or spotlight a black or brown character brings people into the store. And when, if people don’t know that, they come into the store and it’s very evident. Picture books are beautiful and you’re looking at the illustrations and all of the covers have a brown character on them. So I think people, if you don’t know the store that you’re coming into when you get there, you catch that in the first two or three minutes. So that was definitely my intention. Even if I don’t say anything to someone except hello and welcome to the store and what brings you in today, they can sense what we’re trying to do and what the mission of the store is really quickly through the curation of the titles. And it’s, I think, important that people know that that’s what to expect when you come into the store.

Weirdly, we have had people come into the store and they’ll get a book and then they’ll get home and bring it back, and say, Hey, I was offended, or This book doesn’t make me feel good about who I am or what I want to teach my kids, and I want to bring the book back and I’m going to write the author and let them know that they hurt my feelings. So in those couple of situations, it’s given me the opportunity to educate the person getting the book like, Hey, although this is a perspective that you may not have seen or you may not have thought of independently, this is who the author is—doing the research. Hey, this author is actually an activist and she’s a professor, and this body of work has been well researched and well studied, even though it’s a kids’ book. And although you want to write a letter to let the author know how you feel, in doing that, how are you supporting the work of amplifying black and brown voices? And then people kind of thinking to themselves, you’re right, maybe I’m not going to write a letter to the author, but can i bring this book back and exchange it for something else. Sure.

Maya Smart: When you've had those conversations with people, and it sounds like it's happened more than once, do they typically still want to exchange the book, they're kind of committed in that, or are they swayed by your explanation of why you stock it and what they might gain from it?

Ashley Valentine: Yeah, that’s happened about five times, five or six times.

Maya Smart: In a year, in a year's time?

Ashley Valentine: Yeah. Some of the time someone’s like, Hey, I didn’t see it that way, or I didn’t have all this information when I made my decision, because anytime someone does that, the first time I was really offended, I’m just going to let her bring the book back and it’s her loss. And then as I processed it more, it was like, Hey, this is a part of the work, so this is a perfect opportunity to find a research-based article that talks about what the themes are in the book and send that to her and send her an article about who the author is and all the work that she’s doing so that she has all the information to make a well-informed, non-biased, all-factual decision about if she wants this book in her classroom and in her home. And if she doesn’t, offer her the opportunity to get something else.

She still brought the book back, but—it’s hard to tell a tone in an email—but her demeanor when she came in the store was still super light, super excited. She asked way more questions about what she was getting before she bought the book the second time around. But I think she appreciated having the information to make a full-circle decision about if this was a book that was going to be in her classroom or not. And unfortunately, she didn’t choose it. I wish she would’ve, but that choice is not up to me. I can just give you the information and you do with it what you want.

Maya Smart: And as an educator, are you excited about that part of the work? You got into it, thinking about children of color and teaching them to read and curating books that would affirm them and inspire them, etc. But is educating white people about those same things part of the work that you're jazzed about?

Ashley Valentine: I think it is part of the work. Am I excited about it? I’m a little nervous and I’m a little scared, but it’s children’s books, so that gives me a nice resting place. Children’s books are typically non-intimidating, convey messages in a very light, understandable way, and it’s typically centered around love, or they come back to a place of unity. And I think that helps me to be able to share a message in a way that’s not like, Hey, white people get it together tomorrow. And people feel like I can receive this message and share it with my kid. And it’s okay.

Maya Smart: In terms of parents, it sounds like that may have been an educator that came in and returned the book. Yes. With parents. Have you had those sorts of conversations or questions about how best to present the book for the kids?

Ashley Valentine: I have had questions from parents. So a lot, really, a lot of the questions about how to present the book are white parents with mixed-race children. Either they’re adopted or foster children, or they’re their own children concerned about how to share messages of race and skin color, and the idea that we don’t see race and everyone should be treated the same. So trying to reteach that to their kids and looking for support or looking for advice on what books can help with that messaging, or if we offer any programming around reading that type of book and having that conversation.

I appreciate parents coming in and being vulnerable and sharing that and looking for resources and tools and even a safe space to have those types of conversations. And then there are some parents who come in and they ask for the tool and then they take it home and someone else doesn’t appreciate the message and wants to know why they chose that book and why they brought that book home, or why they chose it as a birthday gift.

Was it appropriate to choose this book at this time? So them coming back and then having a follow-up conversation like, Hey, we went with this book, it ruffled a little feathers. Is there another book that we could use to help start to have a conversation with a larger family about what it means to be inclusive or to respect people’s identity or whatever the conversation is? So it kind of just opens the door to more conversations of, okay, we’ve tried to shine a light on this. How do we continue this conversation? Or how do we support a conversation that’s pivoted and gone this way?

Maya Smart: You mentioned that sometimes people are asking for programming to support them in teaching some of these things. Can you describe the programs you do?

Ashley Valentine: Yes. Really, the programming that we offer that supports in that way is our family gathering series. So one Sunday a month families come together and we read a book together, answer some of those literal and inferential questions around the book, and then we open the floor for a conversation about themes or ideas that came up in the book. And we may start with some questions, otherwise people already have questions or they say things that they noticed in the book. So we just hold space for families to engage in those conversations in a safe way.

And then we do a hands-on art activity or a big family game where everyone is playing, whether they’re from your household or not. We’re playing a game all together to kind of bring us back to a high place where everyone’s in a good mood and having a good time. And then we share a dinner catered by a local restaurant or a black or brown owned caterer or entrepreneur. And then in those times, families are following up on conversations or thoughts that came up in conversation. They’re sharing phone numbers, scheduling play dates, scheduling dates to come to the next event. So it’s really a time where people can get to know other people and build community around literacy, and then the families return, invite other families. So every month it gets bigger and bigger.

Maya Smart: And what are some of the other programs? I believe you did a summer book club program for kids as well?

Ashley Valentine: Yes. So this summer we had kids come in for reading support, which was in the form of reading—It was for third- through fifth-graders, that program specifically. So reading a book, doing a lot of annotating, so highlighting what are some main ideas, what are some supporting details, what are some claims? Who are the different characters? What are their attitudes, what are their motivations? So a lot of those comprehension skills that kids kind of struggle with if they’re still learning how to read, and then offering support around that with other students who participated as well. And the facilitators.

Maya Smart: Thanks so much, Ashley.

Ashley Valentine: Thank you.

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The Noble Neighbor is a nonprofit organization associated with St. Louis, MO, bookstore The Novel Neighbor. It exists to bring free books and author visits to systemically underserved schools and students. It’s a great example of a grassroots project that’s making an outsized impact on the community by supporting literacy as a way to promote social justice.

I had a wonderful chat with Noble Neighbor Executive Director Andrea Scarpino, who shared some profoundly inspiring statistics and information:

In some neighborhoods of the U.S. there’s only 1 book per 833 kids. Can you guess which city that’s in?
Such “book deserts” have increased during the pandemic.
The impressive number of books The Noble Neighbor provided to students in just a couple of years.

Give it a watch (or scroll down to read a transcript), and then let me know what you think!

Maya Smart: Hello. I'm so excited to be joined today by Andrea Scarpino, who's the executive director of The Noble Neighbor in St. Louis, Missouri. Welcome, Andrea.

Andrea Scarpino: Thank you. I’m so excited to be talking with you today.

Maya Smart: Can you tell us just a bit about The Noble Neighbor and the services you provide to your community?

Andrea Scarpino: Absolutely. Yeah. So The Noble Neighbor is the sister nonprofit organization of the local independent bookstore named The Novel Neighbor. So what we do at Noble is bring books and author events to underserved kids in our community. So kids have the opportunity to meet an author and then also go home with a copy of the author’s book.

Maya Smart: And so was that something that began with The Novel Neighbor and then took off and realized it was a big enough thing to warrant its own organization?

Andrea Scarpino: Yeah, exactly. So The Novel Neighbor bookstore started doing author visits at schools. So different publicists and publishers would send an author to a school to sell books, basically. And what the bookstore staff realized was that authors were not being sent to lower economic schools where the publisher or the publicist didn’t think that they would actually be able to sell enough books to warrant the trip. So bookstore employees started to see this as a social justice issue, that half of the St. Louis community was not getting access to authors that the other half of the St. Louis community was getting access to.

So they started to kind of simmer on how to make an organization that could help to fight some of that educational inequality. So we started to kind of be formed around late 2019 as a way to combat that social justice issue and be able to bring authors into schools because we guarantee a book buy. So we say, “Hey, we’re going to buy 200 kids a copy of this author’s book.” The publishers are so happy to send us that author. So we’re able to kind of close that gap between lower income and higher income schools.

Maya Smart: What a wonderful mission and a phenomenal service that you're providing to schools. Can you talk a little bit about what you think are the biggest benefits of kids having the opportunity to meet an author in person and take a book home?

Andrea Scarpino: I think many of us know that there’s a correlation between having access to books and increased literacy, but there are also studies that show that when kids have an author visit their school, they are twice as likely to read above their grade level than when they’ve never had the opportunity to meet an author. So for us, we really think of the author visit as our secret sauce. When kids have the opportunity to meet an author, especially an author who looks like them, and then get a chance to take home a copy of their book, they get really excited about reading. They read characters who look like them and who sound like them, and that all increases their interest in reading and their kind of desire to increase their own literacy. What we find is that kids get excited about reading because of the author visit. So then when they take their book home, they’re super excited about starting to read it.

Maya Smart: So there's something about that personal connection and seeing the person who created it, having an opportunity to ask questions and hear a bit about their thought process in creating the book that really resonates with kids and makes them more into it. Do you track data yourself after the visits? And what sorts of things do you use to measure the success of the program?

Andrea Scarpino: Yeah. So we give all of our schools, our partner schools, a evaluation to do at the end of the visit. So we ask every single kid who’s gotten the opportunity to meet the author just different questions. If they had a good time? Also, their likeliness of continuing to read the book after the author has left. We found last year, 99% of the kids said that they were likely to read the book after they had the opportunity to meet the author. And kids on their evaluations write things that help us to know they’re really responding to the authors.

So last year, for example, one of the authors we brought was a poet and middle-grade author named Julian Randall. And Julian Randall’s book, Pilar Ramirez and the Escape from Zafa included a ton of Spanish. So a lot of Spanish words throughout. During his presentation, Julian spoke Spanish to the kids at different points. And a girl in the audience got up and asked him a question in Spanish and then translated in English for the rest of us. And it was a really powerful moment that was clear that she was responding in part to who he is as a person, that he was able to include some of his culture and some of his language in his writing and in his presentation.

And then in the evaluation, so many kids mentioned how powerful it was to hear him speaking Spanish, that they normally don’t have somebody come to their school and speak Spanish with them. So we know from that kind of evaluation that kids really get excited and feel seen when they’re able to meet their author.

Maya Smart: So the visits really present an opportunity for them to see and be seen and to hear and be heard, so powerful. And you mentioned the particular reaction that the student had to the author speaking in Spanish, is that an intentional effort on your part to bring authors who have similar backgrounds to the kids and the schools that you serve?

Andrea Scarpino: Absolutely. Yeah. I mean, that’s part of our mission. There was a study done in 2018 that only 10% of children’s book characters were black in that entire year of publishing. Only 10%. 50% were white and then another, I think 27% were animal characters. So this huge percentage of kids in our country are not getting access to books with characters who look like them. So we do tend to try to bring authors who look like the kids in the schools where we’re going. So, for example, we brought Julian Randall to a school that had a high percentage of Latinx students.

We brought the author Kelly Yang last year. She had a book out in part about the pandemic, the early days of COVID. And part of her book discussed being an immigrant. She had moved from Hong Kong back to the U.S. right at the start of the pandemic. And she talked about the racism her family experienced coming back to the U.S. right at the start of this pandemic. And we brought her to a school that had a high percentage of Asian and Asian American students who really connected with her story and had had some of those similar experiences. So part of our goal is to always connect a particular demographic of a school with particular authors so that kids can see who they look like represented.

Maya Smart: And the larger book buys that you mentioned, for example, 200 books of a particular author's work going to a school. Do you think that that gets on publishers’ radars and it sort of helps authors build their audience and boost their sales figure and sort of a ripple effect?

Andrea Scarpino: I hope so, yeah. I mean, last year for our Giving Tuesday campaign, we chose a book that was edited by Kwame Mbalia called Black Boy Joy. And we said, as part of our campaign, “We want to buy 500 copies of this book.” So all Giving Tuesday, when we were asking our supporters for donations, we mentioned Black Boy Joy and 500 copies, and we ended up surpassing our goals. So we were able to actually give, I think almost 700 kids a copy of Black Boy Joy. So my hope is that that did help bring attention to Kwame Mbalia’s beautiful collection. And it did help the publishers know that these are books that people want to read.

Maya Smart: You said that the organization started in 2019. Can you talk about what it was like starting a nonprofit at that point in time?

Andrea Scarpino: Yeah. So I wasn’t the executive director at that point, but I think it was a little touch and go. So we had our very first kind of inaugural events. We had our Kid Lit Trivia fundraiser in February 2020, and then everything shut down. So we really had to pivot quickly to virtual events. And what we found, honestly, is that a lot of authors wanted to continue doing these events, so we’re very willing to continue showing up in a virtual setting. And we’ve done… I mean, last year we had 16 virtual author events. We were able to give kids nearly 3,500 books. So we were still able, even in the virtual space, to get a lot of kids a lot of books. This year, however, we are hoping to mostly move back to in-person events. So a lot more authors are touring again in person this year. Obviously, we’re going to have to be flexible with the changing health situation, but our goal this year is to have more and more authors actually meeting kids in person instead of virtually.

Maya Smart: Do you get the books to the kids prior to the event or after the event?

Andrea Scarpino: We always try to get the books to the kids before the event. If it’s a picture book, it can be really great for a teacher to have, or a librarian to have read the book to the kids before they get a chance to meet the author. And for some of our middle-grade authors as well, schools will have started reading some of the book. So maybe they’ll have read three or four chapters before they have a chance to meet the author, which I think makes the discussion even richer, because kids already have a sense for the characters and maybe some of what’s going to be happening in the book.

Maya Smart: And with the virtual events, by the point you switched to virtual events, were kids pretty familiar with technology? So is it sort of a setting with the Brady Bunch Squares with all the kids visible, and then they're able to ask questions?

Andrea Scarpino: Yeah. It kind of depends how large the event is. So when we’ve had 10 or 15 classrooms at a time, we tend to use a service called StreamYard. So kids are actually watching kind of on YouTube. So what they see is YouTube, basically. And their teachers can write in questions. We found that that works a little bit easier so that classrooms aren’t coming off of mute in the middle of the presentation and things like that.

When we’ve had smaller classrooms, like if there’s only three or four classrooms of kids, then just kind of doing like a Brady Bunch square situation can be totally great and work really well. Our goal is always to have kids have the opportunity to speak directly with the authors. So ask questions directly of the authors and be able to kind of have a little bit of a conversation with them, even if it’s through the internet. So we always try to leave room and space for kids to have that opportunity to speak directly to the author.

Maya Smart: How did you find yourself in this role, in the midst of a pandemic?

Andrea Scarpino: Well, actually my background is in education. So I spent most of my career teaching. I’m a writer myself, so I love books. I love reading. I’ve always been passionate about social justice. I’ve always been passionate about literacy as a social justice tool. And I think the pandemic wore me out. I had been teaching high school and it was really hard and really exhausting. And this opportunity to do something a little bit different opened up, and I thought it was a great opportunity to use some of my literacy skills and the background I have, the love I have for children’s literature, to be able to kind of grow this organization into something even bigger. So it was actually very, very lucky. I feel very fortunate that the stars aligned and I was able to move into this position that fit so many of my interests and passions.

Maya Smart: What are you looking forward to this year now that more of the events will be in-person?

Andrea Scarpino: I mean, the biggest thing is having the authors here physically. I think that’s going to be really exciting. I mean, the authors we worked with in the past two years have been wonderful. They brought their A-game to the virtual world. They put together slide presentations. I mean, they really tried to make the virtual world as interactive as you possibly can. And also, I think it’s not quite the same as having an author standing in front of your classroom and talking to you personally. So I think that’s the biggest thing that I’m excited about is being able to go into schools physically again. I mean, all last year, I basically brought books to schools, left them on the doorstep, and walked away. So being able to actually be in a room with the author and the kids, I think is going to be pretty magical.

Maya Smart: My audience is always looking for great book recommendations, so can you highlight just three or four or five of the books that you have presented to kids that really resonated with kids?

Andrea Scarpino: My favorite book recommendation from last year was definitely Black Boy Joy, edited by Kwame Mbalia. I think it’s 17 different stories all by different Black authors, and they are amazing, delightful. There’s fantasy, there’s realistic fiction, I think there’s poetry as I recall. It’s just a wonderful collection of short stories written by some of our just shining-star authors, children’s authors especially. So I think that’s a delightful, wonderful book.

This year we have coming up in the spring, I just happened to have this at my desk, The Last Mapmaker by Christina Soontornvat. Amazing, wonderful, wonderful middle-grade as well. As far as picture books last year, we had a delightful author named Brittany Thurman who had her debut, I believe, picture book named Fly came out, and we were able to bring her to several classrooms, and everybody loved her work.

Maya Smart: What is Fly about?

Andrea Scarpino: Fly is about a little girl who becomes a Double Dutch champion, who learns to jump rope and becomes a Double Dutch champion. And the pictures are just beautiful, Brittany Thurman talked really beautifully about how she worked with the illustrator to make the book really come alive, and her story come alive through the pictures. So it’s a really lovely, lovely picture book.

Maya Smart: And can you tell us a little more about The Last Mapmaker?

Andrea Scarpino: You know what is so special is we actually at The Noble Neighbor won a grant. The American Booksellers Association did a grant process to give away copies of her book. So we won 500 copies of her book, and she’s coming to St. Louis in May to meet with our schools, so that’s super special. And I feel really, really grateful that we were able to do that. And really, I think what I love the most about this book is the main character. She’s a powerful girl. She goes on kind of powerful adventures, and she has a lot of sass and spark and interest. And for me, that’s what kept me turning the pages. She’s a really great main character.

Maya Smart: You mentioned the grant that you won to get 500 copies of the book. Can you talk a bit about the fundraising piece of this? How does the support of individual people and foundations and other organizations enable you to give kids these wonderful live author experiences and a book to take home?

Andrea Scarpino: Most of our yearly budget comes from donations, individual donations, corporate donations. We apply for grants regularly as well, of course. But I think really what has made our work so powerful is that we have a ton of community support. We say that it costs us about $3,164 to bring an author to 200 kids. So it’s a substantial amount of money. Right?

And we find every time we go out and ask our community for support, that they really show up, which we are so grateful for. We do fundraising events. We do used book sales, where people donate books to us and we sell them so that we can buy the new books to donate to kids. But really so much of our support comes from the community saying we really value what we do, we believe in getting kids books, and showing up and supporting us.

Maya Smart: And within that $3,164, very specific amount, is that the book, is that the author's travel or honorarium?

Andrea Scarpino: It’s mostly the book costs, honestly, and anything supplemental. That’s a little bit of a rounded number. We did all of the math of what we spend on our book donations and tried to come up with as accurate of figure as possible. But that includes anything, getting the author there, getting them the book, any supplemental gifts that we give kids, stickers or bookmarks, or anything like that.

Maya Smart: Is there anything I haven't asked about your programs or community impact that you'd like to share?

Andrea Scarpino: I read a policy report actually just this morning from 2021 that showed that our community book deserts have only increased during the pandemic. So, one aspect of their policy report was that some neighborhoods of Washington, DC, there’s one book for every 833 kids. And to me, that is devastating, that in our nation’s capital, there could only be one book for every 833 kids. I think what I always try to get across is that our organization is interested in literacy and making the world a better place through literacy. We believe that kids can and will learn to read if we give them the resources and access to books and access to characters who really resonate with them and that that is a way to make our community stronger and our world stronger. So it really is an opportunity to make the world a better place.

Maya Smart: And for people who are interested in creating author experiences for kids in their community or neighborhood or school, what advice would you offer to them about setting up something similar to what you've done?

Andrea Scarpino: Yeah. So I think the first thing would be to connect with your local independent bookstore. So The Noble Neighbor comes from The Novel Neighbor bookstore, and I know a lot of independent bookstores are very community focused. A lot of them have their own nonprofits that are literacy based. So reaching out to your local independent bookstore, I think is a really good starting place.

Many children’s authors are also pretty accessible online. You can find them on Twitter, you can find their website with email addresses, and things like that. So I think it’s also a great opportunity to connect with an author directly, just kind of reaching out to them online and seeing if they want to come and do even a virtual visit with your school or your church group or whatever your organization is. I think a lot of children’s authors really are accessible and want to connect with their audience.

Maya Smart: Are there other things they need to do or think about?

Andrea Scarpino: I think asking the community for support is a really good first step as well. Our founder calls The Noble Neighbor a common-sense cause, and that’s true. I think everybody wants to see kids reading. Everybody wants to get books into the hands of kids. So I would say, ask. Ask your community. They can say no if they don’t want to. But the more you ask, the more people you’re going to find who say yes.

Maya Smart: And then after you've had a visit, you mentioned the surveys. Are there other things people should think about in terms of documenting the success of the event? Should they keep track of the numbers of attendees or take photos or what things do you recommend?

Andrea Scarpino: Yes. All of those things. So we always take photos at events. It can be a little bit challenging because you don’t want to get photos of kids without their parental permission. But we love taking photos, we love when we have a great opportunity to have an author in a photo with a bunch of kids. I think keeping track of all of the kids who are there is really important, that’s how we get our numbers. So we know, for example, in the last two and a half years, we’ve donated 6,000 books to kids. We had 35 author events. Keeping really good track of those numbers, I think can be really powerful.

So our goal this year is to donate our 10,000th book to kids and hopefully connect kids with their 50th author. And I think again, having those numbers can be really, really powerful. So keeping good track of the number of books you’re donating, the amount of money you’re raising, the number of authors you’re connecting with is all really good.

Maya Smart: How can people find you online if they're interested in supporting your work or just following it on social media?

Andrea Scarpino: I would love to have people follow us on social media. So our handle is just Noble Neighbor. We’re on Instagram, Facebook, and LinkedIn under Noble Neighbor. Our website is www.thenobleneighbor.org. So we’ve got lots of information on our website. We’ve got a list of our upcoming school events this fall, and then there’s also, of course, a donate button if people feel so inclined to donate. So our website should be really easy to find. We have a mailing list as well if people want to get regular updates from us, and then social media is always just Noble Neighbor.

Maya Smart: Fantastic. Thanks so much for your time today. I appreciate it and know that many people will be inspired to create some author experiences in their local communities.

Andrea Scarpino: Thank you so much for having me. It was lovely to talk with you.

Do you ever wish you had a fairy godmother to get you through the tough moments of parenting? Or maybe a magic wand?

Parenting author Deborah Farmer Kris shares how parenting mantras can work like magic for parents when they’re at their wits’ end—how remembering a key phrase can rescue the moment when we’re in deep.

In this interview, she reveals:

What to say to kids, from toddlers to teens, when they’re stressed
How to handle children’s meltdowns with six little words
The single lowest-effort, highest-return thing you can do for your child

As a parent, an author, and an advocate, I’ve found Deborah’s insights illuminating and her advice inspiring. She’s the founder of Parenthood365, author of a powerful line of children’s books, and a parenting writer for outlets like PBS KIDS for Parents and NPR learning blog MindShift.

That’s why I wanted to chat with her about raising kids, and share our conversation with you. I know I’ll keep some of her tips on turning challenging moments with children into transformative ones in my toolbox for use for years to come. If you want to learn some of Deborah’s favorite parenting mantras—plus get inspired to create your own—hit play or scroll down for a transcript of our conversation.

Maya Smart: I'm so excited to be here today with Deborah Farmer Kris, who has worn many hats as a mother, a writer, a parent educator, a teacher, a school administrator, and much more. Can you tell us a bit just about your journey into writing and parent education and also children's literature now?

Deborah Farmer Kris:

I had my first child in 2011 and I began to realize that as much as I just adore working with kids, and I still do—I was trained as an educator—and parenting was still really hard. I was trained in child development. I was steeped in this, and still when my kid would have a meltdown at Target, it just triggers all of your anxieties. And I thought, there’s so many amazing, wonderful, loving parents who don’t have all this training, and that must be… What can we be doing to support each other? And so that’s where I began to get really interested in parent education. And then I decided a couple years ago to write some picture books for kids, which we can talk more about later.

Maya Smart: Tell us a little bit about the process you discovered for translating some of the research and theoretical things that you had learned into actually, in the moment, doing the right thing with your child.

Deborah Farmer Kris:

Well, it really—honestly, the process of writing about it has really, really helped. Because I read everything. I’m a bit of a compulsive student, and so I read lots of articles and books, and like you, I talk to a lot of people. And then when I sit down to, say, write the article for PBS Kids for Parents, I try to think, okay, what are the two nuggets here? Of everything I read, I know that our working memory can only take in so much. What are the two or three nuggets? And then I often think about, okay, so what does that sound like in the moment?

So, let’s say we’re talking about trying to help our kids understand their emotions, or let’s say that they’re hitting their sibling. What might more responsive parenting sound like? And so, practicing the script. And then I would say, all right, so I have to try this myself. It got to the point where I’d practice it so much, it became part of my internal script.

And one of the things that, when I’m working with parents, that I have to emphasize is that it’s never a quick fix. Parenting is a long game. And your child, there’s no cookie cutter. There’s no vending machine where you put in something and out comes your Twix bar. It may work great one day, and the next day you use the exact same script, and it just falls flat. Which is why just feeling like you have a lot of tools, and not just for talking to your kids, but for talking to yourself… What are my go-to things for talking myself down when I’m feeling like crappy parent, or I’m feeling like I don’t have it in me, or I’m triggered by my child’s insecurity that day, because it’s triggering something deep from my childhood, what are my own self-care tools that I am practicing over and over again?

I have a dear friend who has a child who’s been going through a lot of struggles. And she’s the one who said to me, “I just keep telling myself it’s the long game.” And that has become one of my parenting mantras, is that one of the joys of having worked with kindergarten through 12th grade, I work a lot with college seniors, is you see them as fourth graders, and you see them as awkward middle-school students, and their parents are freaking out because their cute 10-year-old is now a very hormonal, sassy 14-year-old, and then you see them as seniors, and you see, okay, this is such the long game. Everything we’re putting into it, none of it’s wasted. All these conversations, all these books that you read to them when they were one-year-olds, that’s not wasted for their literacy when they’re five. And all the conversations you’re having when they’re 9-year-olds about tough stuff are not wasted when you can have a conversation when they’re 15, and the stakes are higher.

Maya Smart: I love this idea of having go-to mantras, both things that you say to your child when certain situations arise, whether they're having a meltdown or some other situation, but then also having go-to mantras or touchstones that you return to for yourself. Do you recommend that people write those out in a journal, or how do they instill the habit of thinking those things?

Deborah Farmer Kris:

I think it’s helpful, whatever your system is, right? Whether it’s helpful to write it down, put it on a sticky. For me, my writing mantra is “tell the story of hope,” and it’s on a sticky note and it’s by my desk. It’s pinned to the top of my Twitter feed, so I see it every time I go there. Because for me, that’s motivating to me, is that we live in a really, sometimes, very scary world. And every time I write an article or write for parents, I think about, how do I tell the story of hope? So if a parent is searching for this because their child is having tremendous anxiety, and so they’re searching out my interview with Lisa Damour about this topic, I want them to leave feeling like hope isn’t… It’s not wishful thinking. It’s not toxic positivity, but it’s real. And that’s a good thing to have.

So sometimes I literally write them down, and sometimes there have been phrases somebody has shared with me that are so good, they just get sticky in my brain. And I’ll share one of them with you that I use with teenagers all the time. And this one actually comes from Lisa Damour’s book, Under Pressure, where she talks about, the real concern is not whether or not your child is stressed out, because they will be, and that’s okay. It’s what are the strategies they’re using to cope with that stress. So are they turning to substance use? Are they turning to self harm? What are the strategies they have?

And so, rather than jumping in to trying to solve it, this phrase, which is just like magic, is: “That sounds tough. How do you want to handle it?” Or: “That stinks. How do you want to handle it?” And that honestly is a great mantra for myself too. So it’s like, okay. The situation stinks. How am I going to handle this?

Because it communicates to kids two things at once. One, empathy. This is a tough situation. But two, confidence. I trust your ability to figure this out, and I’m standing right here by you. And I have had a couple of moments where I’ve been mentoring a high school student. We’ve been going on a walk around the block, and literally every five minutes, they’ll finish something, and I’ll say, “Oh yeah, that’s rough. How do you want to handle this?” And that’s literally almost the only thing I say. And at the end, they’ve solved their own problems, and they thank me for doing—nothing other than listening.

And I feel like that is one of those great core phrases that sometimes I just hear and say, “That’s going to work.” And that may be not the core phrase you choose to use, but I look for those when I’m reading somebody. Like, okay, that one for my child, for my students, I think that one might work. That fits my personality. I’m going to try it and make it my own.

Maya Smart: I also have a 10-year-old, or a child born in 2011, and I definitely will try that phrase out. Because there are almost daily situations with friendship or on the sports field or in other situations where, as a parent, you want to offer a solution and give a specific bit of that, well, you should say this or you should do this. But I love that idea of just stepping back and empathizing with, yes, that's a tough situation. That's tough, but how do you want to handle it? I think it also implies that they have some choices, and they can think through all the different things that come to mind for how they might handle it, and then proactively make a choice that makes sense for them in that moment. Would you also say, when they respond with a way of handling it that isn't how you would've recommended, how do you follow up? How do you pause and not correct or change what they've responded with?

Deborah Farmer Kris:

That’s a great question. I’ll go to the high schoolers I work with, because this is… For anybody you have who has a high school audience, sometimes I just ask, “If you could wave a magic wand and solve the situation, what would be… What would you hope it would come out of it?” And then if there… First of all, if it’s not something that’s going to necessarily hurt anybody, they can try it. And if it fails, they try something else. I don’t want to undermine their ability to test something else, because trial and error is a huge part of, just, emotional growth. But if their instinct is to be like, “I’m going to go tell that teacher off,” then I’ll say, “Okay, but what do you want the ultimate outcome to be? Well, if you want to still have a good relationship with that teacher, is this going to help get you there?” And so it’s more of that—coaching questions.

But the idea being the coach versus the problem solver. It’s so easy to say this when you’re writing the article. It’s so much harder in the moment because you’re thinking, “I’ve been here. I can solve your problem.” But it’s really undermining for kids and for their… Even just for their own, not only their growth, but for their anxiety, if we’re constantly stepping in, saying, “This is how to handle it. This is how to handle it.” Because I think it reflects that I can’t do this without my mom or dad. I can’t do this without my teacher. And we want them ultimately to be able to do it without us. With our love, with our support, but with the confidence they can do it on their own.

Maya Smart: Another thing I've gained from reading your work, both in children's literature, and then also through your columns, is this idea of I love you all the time as a mantra or something that parents can just have as a go-to. And I can imagine that phrase being used with a toddler who's had a meltdown, and you're responding to that. I love you, but I'd like to maybe see a different behavior. But then also, as you mentioned with the teenager who's having some more complicated problems and maybe making choices that aren't necessarily the ones that you would make as an adult who's lived through some of that trial and error that they have up ahead. But can you tell us a bit about the inspiration for this book, I Love You All the Time, and the message that it sends to children through parents?

Deborah Farmer Kris:

So that is my ultimate parenting mantra. That is the one. And the background on that is really when my daughter was a two-year-old and she was having just an epic meltdown, and I was trying everything in my repertoire to calm her down. It wasn’t working. And I finally, I scooped her up, and I put her on my lap. And we were rocking, and she was fighting me. And I said to her, “I really love you when you’re mad.” And she stopped crying. And she looked at me like I was nuts. And so I kept going, and I said, “I love you when you’re happy. I love you when you’re sad. I love you when you’re scared. I love you when you’re mad, I love you all the time.”

And she settled down. And I realized that that was, I think, such a core question that so many of us have about our own selves, even as adults, of will I still be loved if I don’t do this. And I think for kids who have these big, overwhelming feelings or are getting lots of constructive feedback, let’s say you have a child who is neurodivergent, who they’re getting constant feedback at school about… “Where are your shoes? Where’s your assignment? Where’s this? Pay attention.” Just to be… That feeling that Mr. Rogers gave those of us of that generation, who watched him and could hear him say, “I love you just the way you are.”

So that became my nighttime ritual with my kids, is that I would say that. “I love you when you’re happy. I love you when you’re sad. I love you when you’re scared. I love you when you’re mad. I love you all the time.”

And my son, when he got a little older, would start pushing on that. And he would say things like, “What if I chopped down your favorite tree? What if I punched you? Would you still love me?” And it was this awesome opportunity to talk through, “I wouldn’t be happy that you hit me, but I would still love you.” That love is the common baseline.

And I think it reminds me that in so much of parenting, there are things that we assume our kids know. And I think so much of parenting is making the implicit explicit. So the things that we think that they understand, from issues of how to be polite and say please and thank you, how to write a thank you card, to issues of race and class in America. We might assume they’ve just picked it up, but we have to be able to talk in an open way. And so for me, being able to say “I love you all the time,” that’s my mantra. Then that’s the baseline where we can have every other conversation, every other important conversation.

So after about seven years, I decided, hey, that’s a picture book, so I turned it into one. Free Spirit accepted it and then said, “Could you turn into a series?” And that’s how the All the Time series came about.

Maya Smart: And what was it like for you, transitioning from writing for parents to writing for children?

Deborah Farmer Kris:

Well, the great part about writing for Free Spirit is that at the back of the book, there’s a letter to caregivers, which is one reason I really want to work with them, is because my thought was, one of the most amazing moments for me as a parent, there’s nothing I love more than read aloud. I’ve read to my kids every day since they were born. They’re 8 and 10 now. It’s just part of our daily routine. And I thought, there are a lot of parents for whom they may not be reading the parenting book, but hopefully they’re still sitting and reading to their kid. And so, all of these books are written from a caregiver’s voice writing to a child—sorry, speaking to a child. And so, I thought I’d love to be able to just almost facilitate that moment between a caregiver and a child, where in reading this book, there was that practice with the language, but also just that sense of closeness that can come.

And so, the best part is that my kids could be beta testers on a book like this, and I’ve read so many thousands of books, not only to my own kids, but as an elementary school teacher, that getting the rhythm right was really important to me. Getting the pictures, art direction right was really important because I just know what read-aloud can be. And so do you, with all of your work on reading, that it feels—much more so than even my other writing for publications—this feels like, almost, the sacred-trust writing, because you’re writing something that is read aloud to a child. And that, to me, it’s just absolute magic that I’ve had a chance to do it. And I’m super excited to do more of it.

Maya Smart: I love this idea that the book itself contains a lesson for parents. There are so many wonderful children's books, and, as parents, we choose them for all different reasons. Sometimes we love more of the story, or we love the illustrations, or there's some other feature of the book that we love. And sometimes, books—the author's intent for how the book will be read and what it can teach are different than the parents' ideas. So I love this idea of books that are explicitly written in the parents' voice and books that contain a couple of pages of notes or a letter to the parent, telling them how best to apply some of the themes of the book in everyday life with the child. But I love the phrase that you use also, just facilitating a moment with children. What advice do you have for parents, as someone who has read hundreds of books now, or hundreds of stories? What advice would you have for a parent who has not yet instilled that habit, or perhaps doesn't see the value in it?

Deborah Farmer Kris:

It’s the most rewarding, high-benefits, low-effort thing you can do to influence your child, in the sense that you can go and get some books at the library, zero cost, sit down. And every time you read a book to your child, you know you are helping them. You know that moment, one, is developing a relationship with books, because they’re associating books with the moment of closeness with their parent. They’re getting just the sense, the rhythm of the story, the context clues. And so, I know especially when COVID just started and there was so much concern about how do we do this at home? And my thought is, if we do nothing else but sit and read to our kids, the research is so profound that children who are read to are those who become stronger readers.

And it’s not… And I think so much of that is just even the emotional connection with books, that you remember the lilt of a person’s voice, your grandmother sitting and reading a favorite book, and sitting on the lap and having that closeness. And, for me, I do mostly read aloud at bedtime. And so, it’s one of those ways where even if the evening really didn’t go well, there’s a moment of closeness at the end of the day. Pick one book off the shelf. Often, it’s an old favorite. We’ll sit, we can read one book, and you end the day feeling connected.

But I remember, my second book is You Have Feelings All the Time. And before I wrote that, I remember there was a day when my son was about four, and he was just having a terrible evening. And I had lost my patience. He had lost his. And finally, I was like, “Go get yourself a book.” Because I always read a book. And he went over to a shelf, and he pulled out Glad Monster, Sad Monster, which is a feelings book.

And he brought it over. And I read it, and I actually got teary while I was reading it. And I looked at him and I said, “Are you having a lot of big feelings today?” He just—his eyes got big and he nodded. And I thought, that book provided this moment where it allowed him to communicate what he was struggling to communicate. His emotions, his behavior was not about trying to make me angry or be defiant. It was about something else going on inside of him. And it was just that reminder to me.

And, you know, I go in and read these books to a bunch of preschoolers. I’ve been going on the school tour. It’s the best book tour ever. I get to go to a bunch of preschools. And these four- and five-year-olds, they love talking about their emotions. You just get them started, and they really are so eager to talk to an adult. And so, I’d say if you’re sitting down to read a book like You Have Feelings All the Time, just pause, look at the pictures, and say, “What do you think she’s feeling right now?” There’s this spread at the end where they’re releasing butterflies at the end, the classes raised butterflies. And before I showed it to them, I think I said, “Well, how do you think everyone’s feeling because they’re about to release the butterflies?” “They’re excited, they’re happy.”

And then I show the picture. And there’s one man who’s scared, and there’s a baby who’s crying, and there’s a mom who looks stressed-out, and somebody’s flapping excited, and somebody’s sitting peacefully—because we have feelings all the time. And they’re not always what we expect to have. So, picture books are so, so amazing as their own genre, to be able to sit and read to kids and get them to think contextually and to just bond and just pause and point out, what are you noticing here? And often, they’ll notice stuff that we haven’t.

So sometimes, if you just pause and linger, you’re going to learn a lot about your kid just by hearing how they’re talking about the pictures. It’s magical. Get a library card, go stock up. To me, it’s one of the great benefits of parenting is that you get to read books.

I take every opportunity I can to encourage people to invest in giving all our children the strong start they need to thrive in school and life. And the importance of intentional, ongoing support of families with young children is even more urgent given pandemic-related academic losses and trauma. So I was particularly honored to share this message with hundreds of women during a keynote speech at the 2022 Women United Bruncheon of the United Way of Greater Milwaukee & Waukesha County.

It was a powerful moment and event. It was Women United’s first event since before the pandemic, and my own first speaking appearance since then as well. It offered an opportunity to reflect on accomplishments and, more importantly, to examine how we can do more in a world where Covid has compounded already weighty challenges.

In my address, I argued that we need to advocate for policies that support children and families:

“Now imagine what happens if we all continue to work. If we work at preventing the reading challenges we can, and intervening early for those we can’t prevent. If we work at bolstering families’ access to books, early-literacy best practices, and high-quality reading instruction. If we work at advocating for paid parental leave, high-quality and affordable preschool, and better teacher training.

“I think our collective efforts could change the life trajectories of millions of students. Improve their job prospects, health, and self-regard. I think it will work. I think we should try.”

You can watch the full speech below, or scroll down for a transcript.

It is a rare honor to deliver a keynote message to such an esteemed group of women. And particularly so at your first post-pandemic gathering.

When a small group of leaders, some of whom are in the audience today, came together in 2002 to ponder ways to make a difference by forming a women’s initiative, pandemic-wrought global shutdowns were not on their minds. A time like this when I can stand before more than 400 of you in person and more via livestream anywhere in the world was not on their minds.

The women gathered instead with a very urgent mission in their hearts—to make Milwaukee a safer, healthier place for girls and women. This was a substantial undertaking. After all, they were talking about life-threatening issues like violence, victimization, and the circumstances that lead to children bearing children.

But the women, brave and unshrinking, looked at the problem head-on, had the tough discussions, aired the concerns, and worked through the tensions. Then they did what needed to be done:

Gathered evidence to define problems and solutions
Selected a vulnerable demographic to focus on
Convened and organized a large and powerful coalition of partners
Delivered an intensive intervention
Assessed and improved upon results
Took what worked to scale

The fruits of this labor? Fewer children born to children. But that wasn’t all. The wins were better high-school graduation rates, better adolescent health, better lifetime earning potential. The wins were lower likelihood of poverty, incarceration, and foster-care entrance. The wins were fewer children born at high risk of being underweight at birth, being unprepared for kindergarten, having the behavioral problems and chronic medical conditions often correlated with being born to an adolescent parent.

The wins also included personal transformations among the women involved. They learned how to pursue big civic goals with vision, collaboration, and consistency over time. They learned how to be a part of a far-reaching, long-term movement. They learned how to be Women United.

There’s a quote that Nicole Angresano, vice president of community impact, uttered years ago that speaks to this intent to stay the course.

She said, “We said early on that we need to make a commitment, internally and publicly, that the initiative will be sustained even beyond our end-goal of lowering the adolescent pregnancy rate by 46 percent. In fact, it is not an end-goal, it is our first goal. Even when we get to a 46 percent drop, that is still too many kids having babies. We will continue to press and not become self-congratulatory.”

I love that. Continue to press. Do not become self-congratulatory.

Continue to press. Do not become self-congratulatory.

And so United Way leaders, Women’s Leadership Council, Women United, and esteemed guests, here we are 20 years on from the start of something great. Here we are more than 1,600 people strong in the largest Women United network in the world. Here we are with a unique opportunity to continue to press and make the next 20 years of action on behalf of women and girls something worth celebrating in 2042.

We know there’s much work to do. We know that whatever problems we had prior to COVID have only intensified since. Earlier in this program CEO Amy Lindner spoke of the hopelessness, desperation, and fear so many felt amid the pandemic. She spoke of the heightened food insecurity, increased housing fragility, soaring family violence, and more.

From my work in education, I’ve seen countless ways that the pandemic has had a severely negative impact on kids’ academic prospects as well. And to be frank, the situation is especially dire in Milwaukee, because educational disparities were extreme to begin with.

Here’s the current reality:

The picture of literacy in America has been grim. We’ve had stagnant reading scores for decades pre-Covid and devastating learning loss since. And, now, as schools close for the year, a mass summertime academic slide will begin its predictable descent.
Already poor reading achievement dipping to new lows in Covid times has been dubbed “the kindergarten crisis” and an estimated third of early elementary students will need intensive support to learn to read.
But that’s not the worst of it. Kindergarten is merely a point in time when headline-grabbing data is captured. The condition is pre-existing.
New evidence suggests that babies’ and toddlers’ neurodevelopment and cognitive performance plummeted in the pandemic, hurt by caregiver stress and isolation.

And I know that each of you can cite examples from your own industries and personal experiences of the ways that the pandemic has taken pre-existing challenges and ramped them up to crisis levels. Businesses and nonprofits alike have struggled mightily with recruiting and retaining qualified staff, managing finance and revenue, and delivering programs, products, and services.

Given all of this, the question becomes: what would it take for each of us to do our parts to raise Women United’s bar of service, leadership, and philanthropy in our community to meet the even more complex and urgent needs of today and the next 20 years?

The answer, I believe, is doubling down on our strengths as individual contributors to society, and expanding and deepening our connections to others who share our vision of a better world for women and girls. As author Molly Carlile put it, “This is what will change the world … a ground swell of people pouring their energy into manifesting their ‘preferred future’ instead of being worn down by disillusion and disappointment.”

With its mission to “mobilize a powerful network of women who strengthen our community through an investment of talent, compassion, and philanthropy,” Women United is part of the groundswell. What makes the network powerful is the positive energy each of us pours in.

We’re each a “node” in the network. We each represent different organizations, different demographics, different resources, different expertise. Take a look at the women at your table. Then take a look at the women at the next table over. And the next table. Seriously, look around and imagine your reach, your influence—your power to shape Milwaukee’s future—expanding with each new connection.

Our relationships with one another are the invisible architecture that upholds the network. When we connect across our table, across our differences, we can foster stronger flows of information, smarter allocation of resources, greater recognition of opportunity, and better results.

I was reminded of the power of networks when I attended my 20th college reunion earlier this month. The event gave me a personal occasion to reflect on the span of years from 20 to 40. The years saw young women who once skulked around campus in rumpled peasant tops, platform flip flops, and pocketless bootcut jeans transformed into dynamos that had founded publicly traded companies, led think tanks, run for Congress, produced films and television shows, written consequential books, and more.

Yet in each case, the accomplishments were clear extensions of the students we’d been as 20-year-olds. The successes weren’t inevitable. But they weren’t surprising, either.

The seeds of whatever we accomplished post-graduation were in the subjects we studied, the papers we wrote, and the dreams we cast when we were still in school. The seeds were also in the groups we joined, the friends we made, the contacts we shared, the relationships we cultivated.

And 20 years later, we weren’t just at the reunion to reminisce. We were there to strengthen our ties to one another and to our college. We were investing in the network and benefiting from it too.

In order for Women United to leverage the power of its sizable network, each of us, individually, personally, has to get clear on what we have to give. The experiences, skills, connections, and perspectives we can bring to the table.

I’ll give you an example from my life. When my daughter, Zora, was three years old, I dove headfirst into an exhaustive search for the best school for her. I quickly discovered that Austin had some amazing schools with skilled teachers, innovative curricula, and beautiful facilities, but they were concentrated in certain neighborhoods and didn’t reach or serve all Austin children. In fact, at most of the so-called great schools I visited in those early months, I saw a jarring lack of racial and socioeconomic diversity.

I saw the same division, disparity and inequity over and over again from different angles.

I saw it in heat maps showing concentrations of people of color living in poverty and experiencing low educational attainment.

I saw it in groups of primarily brown and black children learning in portables with outdated books featuring characters that didn’t resemble them.

I saw it in reports showing how the zip code children were born into could predict how well-prepared for kindergarten they would be, how much experience their teachers would have, how strong their reading skills would become, how much support they would have on the path to and through college.

I wanted to understand for myself what was really going on and how to turn it around. So, I read hundreds of books and articles on reading instruction and children’s literature. I interviewed expert practitioners and researchers. I spent thousands of hours volunteering as a book buddy, parent coach, library assistant, and advisor to numerous literacy organizations. I led community outreach for literary events, granted funds to libraries statewide, curated author experiences for children living in poverty.

I learned so many valuable lessons. But what mattered most for making a difference wasn’t what I knew but who I connected with. Who I asked questions of, who I shared information with, who I worked alongside.

Eventually my personal effort to better understand what it takes to raise a reader tipped into a larger mission to help all parents learn what’s needed to do this vital work. And during the pandemic I buckled down to write a book, called Reading for Our Lives: A Literacy Action Plan from Birth to Six.

And when I shared that I was moving to Milwaukee, a contact from a foundation featured in the book introduced me to a host of people here at the Office of Early Childhood Education, Marquette, UWM, Next Door, Penfield Children, and more. And they, too, have made introductions that have expanded my network and my impact.

This isn’t the transactional kind of networking that one writer described as “the unpleasant task of trading favors with strangers.” Rather, it’s transformational in nature. It’s the joyful work of exchanging ideas, support, and expertise with neighbors.

All of these partners in my newly expanded network share a commitment to spreading the message that, while it’s crucial for schools to teach what students need to learn (from phonics and math to history and science), it’s just as imperative that parents and caregivers are well-equipped and supported to lay the groundwork kids need in order to learn well when they arrive in school.

We’re all working in different ways (research, programming, advocacy) to highlight the fierce urgency of better supporting families during the first years of children’s lives, when caregivers’ nurturing, supportive back-and-forth verbal engagement shapes kids’ brain structure and function for life.

By around two years old, the major brain circuits and networks are in place, according to evidence from anatomical, physiological, and gene-expression studies. From there on out, brain development is mostly about refining what’s already in place.

We all have unique resources and expertise to give. One of my favorite examples of this comes from someone I met while volunteering with an affordable permanent housing program years ago.

He’d been homeless in four different states. He spent his entire 20s in prison in Mississippi, but even there, given his circumstances, he found a way to give back. He was one of the few fully literate inmates there and worked with a nun to teach other prisoners to read. It was in the 80s and they used a program called Hooked on Phonics. It worked, he said.

It worked at giving him a purpose during his incarceration. It worked at teaching adults who had failed to learn to read every single year of their youths how to read. It worked to help them read letters from their families on their own for the first time. It worked to help them feel a direct connection to home and imagine new possibilities for themselves upon parole. It worked.

Now imagine what happens if we all continue to work. If we work at preventing the reading challenges we can, and intervening early for those we can’t prevent. If we work at bolstering families’ access to books, early-literacy best practices, and high-quality reading instruction. If we work at advocating for paid parental leave, high-quality and affordable preschool, and better teacher training.

I think our collective efforts could change the life trajectories of millions of students. Improve their job prospects, health, and self-regard. I think it will work. I think we should try.

If we did, it would be a great tribute to the founding women who first united to create this network. Those who had a vision and pursued it. Those who ran meetings and raised funds, volunteered time and donated money. Those who charted strategy, wooed partners, and held everyone accountable.

In short, we should be Women United. We should continue to press.

Thank you.

Summer is here! And while kids may rejoice at the prospect of sleeping in, exploring the beach, or going on a trip, the reality for parents is that changes in school and child care routines can take a toll. Lazy days are often few and far between for caregivers who are ever on call to shepherd the health, safety, and development of little ones.

That’s why I’ve compiled a digital Summer Survival Kit for parents and caregivers who pre-order my book, Reading for Our Lives: A Literacy Action Plan from Birth to Six, forthcoming from Avery/Penguin Random House in July.

This bonus is available exclusively to people who pre-order the book. You’ll also get early access to a bunch of other useful resources and freebies for raising readers, designed to support the action plan outlined in the book. Once you order your copy, complete the form below to get instant access to the freebies.

The Summer Survival Kit was designed to make it easier to ride the waves with your kids this summer. It contains a curated digital library of tips and summer activities for kids—along with cheat sheets and checklists of what you’ll need to plan a fun, easy, cheap, and educational summer. Inside you’ll find:

Recommendations of music, audio stories, and podcasts to navigate your days
Conversation prompts to encourage the back-and-forth exchanges kids need to build brain connections, vocabulary, and knowledge
A list of simple, inexpensive, easy-to-find, reusable, and adaptable tools to enrich daily life and learning
A roundup of board games that are as educational as they are fun
A bucket list of activities to make the most of your summer

I hope these activities bring you and your family joy as you grow and learn together!

Preorder Receipt

More about Reading for Our Lives

When my daughter went off to school, I was shocked to discover that a good education in America is a long shot, in ways that few parents fully appreciate. Our current approach to literacy offers too little, too late, and attempting to play catch-up when kids get to kindergarten can no longer be our default strategy. The brain architecture for reading develops rapidly during infancy, and early language experiences are critical to building it. That means parents’ work as children’s first teachers begins from day one too—and we need deeper knowledge to play our positions.

Reading for Our Lives challenges the bath-book-bed mantra and the idea that reading aloud to our kids is enough to ensure school readiness. Instead, it gives parents easy, immediate, and accessible ways to nurture language and literacy development from the start. Through personal stories, historical accounts, scholarly research, and practical tips, this book presents the life-and-death urgency of reading, investigates inequity in its achievement, and illuminates a path to a true, transformative education for all.

In the book, you’ll find:

A clear roadmap. Find out what to expect and focus on at each stage and age, from infancy to early elementary.
An understanding of foundational literacy skills. Learn how basic skills affect long-term success, and how to introduce and strengthen them with warmth and compassion.
Easy action items. Seamlessly add literacy-rich habits into your daily family life with no special tools, apps, or materials required.
Evidence-supported tactics. Discover routines, conversation starters, activities, and more that help make regular days with small kids more educational and enjoyable.

Praise for Reading for Our Lives

I have rarely had a more visceral reaction to a book than I had in reading Maya Smart’s Reading for Our Lives: I was, in turn, frightened, angered, reassured, and finally, inspired. I was frightened because I thought back on all the things I missed about reading while raising my kids that she expertly details here. I was angry because she offers an expert roadmap for navigating the tough terrain of literacy for our children. And I was inspired because her book is so eloquent and easy to understand as she leads us in the crucial work of providing our children their best futures because they are truly literate. This is a brilliant, timely and life-changing book that is worth far more to you and your children than what it costs to read Maya Smart’s illuminating words and soak in her transformative wisdom.

Michael Eric Dyson co-author of Unequal: A Story of America

An amazing book for perhaps the most important job parents have: getting our kids to love to read.

Ryan Holiday, #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Daily Stoic, The Obstacle Is the Way, and Ego Is the Enemy

A must-read for any parent! This exceptional book walks you through not only the why of reading to your child but the way. The scientifically grounded, step-by-step insights outlined here can heighten both your and your child’s joy at learning one of life’s most important skills: reading.

Barbara Oakley, author of A Mind for Numbers

Reading for Our Lives is the book to turn to when nurturing critical readers. Like reading, Smart’s book is for our children’s lives. Don’t miss out, because our kids must not miss out on the life-giving power of reading.

Ibram X. Kendi, National Book Award-winning author of Stamped from the Beginning and How to Be an Antiracist

I anticipate a revolution of reading readiness once parents get their hands on this book! In Reading for Our Lives, Maya Smart puts her faith in parents as the key participants in leading our youngest learners into literacy. No more tears over tedious workbooks or relentless drilling. Instead, Smart offers countless, actionable tips and practices to be used at home. Smart rightly claims that learning to read is of urgent, liberating importance for today’s children. Preparing them at home so that they are equipped for school is a gift any parent can easily give their children, with Smart’s book in hand. I’ll be recommending Reading for Our Lives for years to come. It’s the best book about learning to read I’ve ever read!

Julie Bogart, creator and founder of Brave Writer, author of The Brave Learner and Raising Critical Thinkers

Maya Smart is an author and early literacy advocate who helps parents nurture, teach, and advocate for children on the road to reading. Her book Reading for Our Lives: Why Early Literacy Matters and How to Achieve It is out now! Get your copy here.

Wondering how to make your child smarter (and if that’s even possible)? Before you splurge on dubious brain-boosting toys, games, and videos, it might be worth focusing your attention a little closer to home. And by that, we mean your parenting style.

Research shows that there is a strong association between parenting styles and cognitive development. And more specifically, that practicing responsive parenting—understanding your child’s emotional and physical needs, and reacting to them appropriately and consistently—can have a significant impact on intelligence, as well as emotional and physical wellbeing.

The World Health Organization summarized the impact that studies found from this kind of parenting: “Maternal responsiveness in early childhood was associated with social competence and fewer behavioral problems at three years; increased intelligence quotient (IQ) and cognitive growth at four-and-a-half years; school achievement at seven years; as well as higher IQ and self-esteem, and fewer behavioral and emotional problems at age 12.”

Sounds good, right? But what exactly is responsive parenting and how do we do it? Which specific actions have scientists highlighted as fostering intelligence and why? Let’s take a look at six simple ideas you can try today.

Practice Responsive Parenting!

1

Start From Birth

Don’t wait until your child has reached a particular age or milestone before tuning into them and responding to them in kind. One study showed that mothers’ sensitive behavior towards and language with their five-month old babies—long before infants can speak words—had a positive ripple effect on those children’s core language skills up to four years later. And kids who start school with strong verbal skills do better in their academic and social-emotional growth later.

2

Act Lovingly

Parents who consistently behave affectionately and emotionally support their children will nurture their kids’ developing self-regulation skills and increase the chances of them forming a secure attachment bond. What happens when a young child feels like mom and dad are a safe home base? They develop not only an increased ability to communicate their thoughts and needs, but also a greater interest and willingness to explore the world, leading to more learning.

3

Support Focus and Problem-Solving

Young attention spans develop gradually. And one way to help kids focus is to structure activities and play in ways that help them build up to a more active or independent role in time. That could mean engaging together in a puzzle, for example, and gently helping your child maintain focus by talking through problem-solving together, rather than redirecting or distracting them as soon as frustration crops up. The idea is that eventually your child will be able to regulate their behavior and figure things out for themselves. According to the same study that highlighted the importance of loving parenting, infants who had responsive mothers showed greater problem-solving skills than those who didn’t.

4

Make Plenty of Time and Space for Play

Play is crucial for learning and brain development, and it’s linked with improved attention, language and math skills, problem-solving, and reasoning. Young children with responsive parents can be free and supported to engage with play more deeply, and so display more complex play skills than those without. Honoring your child’s need for play and your role within that is a great way to foster their cognitive and emotional skills for years to come. This can look like responding positively to their play initiatives (for example, joining their make-believe games), standing by as a nurturing observer or engaged commentator as they play, or helping them explore or regulate their emotions as they play.

5

Encourage Early Remembering

Being able to talk about the past is a key language milestone, and it’s also an important achievement in children’s communicative and cognitive development. How can parents nurture the development of this skill? Ask questions! One study showed that responsive mothers who frequently asked their toddlers about past events could help in boosting short and long-term recollection and building autobiographical memory. You can ask your little ones about their earliest memories or about past experiences, and you can model recollections by telling stories of your own!

6

Take Turns In ‘Conversation’

When it comes to the role of parents in cognitive development, positive use of language and communication plays a key role, so it’s worth paying attention to how that looks in your family, especially in terms of your responsiveness.

In early talk with babies and kids, timely back-and-forth exchanges between a child and a grown-up, or vice-versa, are known as conversational turns. Simple yet powerful, they boost cognitive development, and are linked to increased connectivity between two key language areas of the brain and higher IQ in later childhood. Good to know: The “responses” in conversational turns don’t have to be recognizable words—that means a baby’s coos or a toddler’s made-up lingo all count, as long as the caretaker responds to those vocalizations within five seconds.

Parents eager to get conversation flowing with their little ones can try simple tactics like turning daily routines and activities into opportunities for chatting, making screen-time more interactive by talking about what’s happening on-screen, and avoiding interruptions. Our tips for engaging kids during read-alouds work well for engaging small kids in conversation during non-reading situations, too. And check out our Everyday Literacy collection of activities for ideas of fun ways to mix print awareness and pre-reading or reading skills into everyday life, as well.

And those who want to take conversations with infants to a deeper level can use relevant and descriptive language, back up spoken words with physical gestures, and modify their responses in line with their child’s developing skills. For example, stick to very simple language for the youngest babies and incorporate more complex turns of phrase or questions as their vocabulary and skills grow.

Have a brain-boosting, responsive parenting tip to share? We’d love to hear it!

Andrea Hunt is a writer, editor, and storytimer who shares and reviews picture books in the margins of work and family life (@hellobookcub on Instagram).

Welcome to the July edition of Smart Story Time!

Keeping new books in the mix keeps reading time fresh for your child, as well as continually exposing them to new subjects and vocabulary. That’s why we curate some of our best recommendations for diverse kids’ books around timely topics each month. We hope this inspires you to find some awesome new-to-you reads for your child at your local library or independent bookstore.

Here are some topics to delve into with your child this month:

Picture Books for Fourth of July

For Independence Day, contributor and early childhood educator Chrysta Naron recommends a selection of wonderful picture books that explore the beauty and diversity of America.

From We the Kids, which explains the preamble to the U.S. Constitution, to artist Faith Ringgold’s We Came to America, this list shares impactful kids’ titles to help you and your child celebrate, contemplate, and converse about this nation.

Then extend the learning and the bonding by helping your child create their very own kids’ bill of rights. Bonus: We also have a firework literacy craft to help your child practice tricky words while making some cute Fourth of July-themed art.

Kids’ Books by & about Nelson Mandela

For parents seeking to teach their children about history through the true stories of people who’ve worked to shape it for the better, it’s hard to imagine a more inspiring subject than anti-apartheid activisit, South African president, and Nobel prize winner Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela.

Introduce your kids to this towering figure of modern history through three children’s books produced by Mandela himself and the Nelson Mandela Foundation. For younger readers and listeners, there’s a picture book adaptation of Nelson Mandela’s autobiography. For middle-schoolers and comic lovers, there’s a large-format graphic novel that recounts the story of Nelson Mandela and the country he served.

And for readers of any age who can appreciate a good fable, there’s a collection of 32 classic, and some newer, African folktales selected by Mandela—each accompanied by a whimsical, colorful illustration.

Picture Books about Birds & Nature

Take advantage of summer by pairing some books about the great outdoors with outings to explore it together with your child. (After all, spending time outside in natural green spaces provides major benefits for raising readers.)

To begin, try this bird walk activity for preschoolers created by birder and conservationist Susan Gadamus—you’ll find a number of recommended picture books at the end of the post.
Then, for more picture books about nature, take a look at writer Karen Williams’s list of picture books celebrating water and author Tulani Thomas’s favorite eco-friendly reads for kids.

Picture Books about Your Child’s Interests

MayaSmart.com is your one-stop-shop for raising a reader. Check out our other kids’ book lists and articles. In addition to bringing books into your reading time that tackle timely topics or important subjects, be sure to follow their interests, as well. If your kid loves science or animals—read about those topics. Following their interests keeps them engaged and helps you build a responsive relationship with your child.
We’ll be back next month with the next installment of Smart Story Time. Meanwhile, feel free to message me with requests for future posts, book recommendations, or just to say hi!

What are you reading with your child this month? Scroll down to connect on social media & let me know!

Maya Smart is an author and early literacy advocate who helps parents nurture, teach, and advocate for children on the road to reading. Her book Reading for Our Lives: Why Early Literacy Matters and How to Achieve It is out now! Get your copy here.

Welcome to the June edition of Smart Story Time!

Keeping new books in the mix keeps family reading time fresh for your child (and you), as well as introducing them to new subjects and vocabulary. That’s why we curate some of our best recommendations for diverse picture books around timely topics each month. We hope this inspires you to find some awesome new-to-you reads for your child at your local library or independent bookstore.

Here are some topics, plus recommended reads, to delve into with your child this month:

Picture Books for Father’s Day

Father’s Day is fast approaching! It’s a great moment to honor Dad—and all the special guys in your and your child’s life. This year, why not create a celebration of dads, uncles, and grandpas on your bookshelf?

The gift of a book is wonderful in and of itself, but the gift of time spent reading together is priceless. Check out this list of sweet picture books to read for Father’s Day and celebrate the men you care about. Bonus: Make a sweet DIY Father’s Day card with an acrostic poem.

Kids’ Books about Juneteeth

Juneteenth marks the day in 1865 that word of the Emancipation Proclamation finally reached enslaved Texans, two years and six months after President Abraham Lincoln issued it. On June 19, Union General Gordon Granger arrived in the state and announced the news, making Texas one of the last states to legally abolish slavery.

In 1980, Texas declared Juneteenth a statewide holiday and, thanks to the work of activists like Opal Lee, it recently became a federal holiday. To remember and celebrate the freedom the day commemorates, writer Courtney Runn compiled a list of inspiring and informative Juneteenth picture books to read with your children.

Picture Books for Pride Month

June is Pride month, a time to celebrate the LGBTQ+ community in all its wonderful uniqueness. It’s an opportunity for queer families to be seen and to share. It’s also a time to spark some valuable conversations with your children.

Early childhood educator Chrysta Naron has put together a list of some of her favorite joyful books with LGBTQ+ characters and stories for you to take a look at this month. Be prepared for giggles, touching conversations, and tons of rainbow color!

Books to Inspire (and Occupy) Your Kids All Summer

If your child’s on summer vacation, it’s worth investing some time early on to cement the reading habit and ensure that reading books takes pride of place among free-time activities. Read our tips for summer reading and our article about proven ways to motivate kids to read for suggestions on building and reinforcing the love of reading. These include sharing books your child loves, books their friends are into, and books they can enjoy independently.

On that last note, if your child isn’t reading yet, consider getting some quality wordless picture books from your library or bookshop. They’re good for building comprehension, storytelling, reading fluency, and all-around book love. And they’re also fabulous for keeping kids gainfully entertained, at home or on the road (as are audiobooks!).

If you’re hitting the road or getting together with relatives this summer, you’ll also want to check out our posts on building reading and writing into family travel, educational road trip games, and using books to set the scene for great visits with relatives. (We also have suggestions for fun summer activities that incorporate learning, to keep you and your little ones entertained around home!)

Picture Books about Your Child’s Interests

MayaSmart.com is your one-stop-shop for raising a reader. Check out our other kids’ book lists and articles. In addition to sharing books that tackle timely topics or important subjects, be sure to follow your child’s interests, as well. If your kid loves basketball or puppies—read about those topics. Following their interests keeps them engaged and helps you build a responsive relationship with your child.

We’ll be back next month with the next installment of Smart Story Time. Meanwhile, feel free to message me with requests for future posts, book recommendations, or just to say hi!

What are you reading with your child this month? Connect on social media & let me know!

Maya Smart is an author and early literacy advocate who helps parents nurture, teach, and advocate for children on the road to reading. Her book Reading for Our Lives: Why Early Literacy Matters and How to Achieve It is out now! Get your copy here.

Learning to accept and love themselves as they are is a journey for kids—and it can be a beautiful journey that each child experiences in their own unique way. Whether it’s curls, coils, waves, straight locks, or no locks, embracing their natural hair is a celebration of identity and self-love. Meanwhile, choosing, changing, or styling their hair can also be a form of self-expression and joy. And parents can affirm all of this hair love through picture books that reflect the joy and pride to be found in every strand.

This post shares some carefully selected hair love picture books that explore all types of hair and ‘dos to help kids accept themselves. These books will delight your children, while helping build and reinforce a positive self-image. Let’s dive into these vibrant stories that encourage little readers to love and embrace their wonderful natural or chosen hair.

Hair Love

Written by Matthew A. Cherry, Illustrated by Vashti Harrison

This is a heartwarming tale filled with humor, showcasing a black father and his daughter navigating her hair care with love and laughter. This story, beautifully illustrated and adapted into an Academy Award-winning short film, celebrates the beauty of natural hair and the bonds formed through everyday moments. Cherry’s narrative, vibrant and touching, encourages both children and parents to embrace their unique traits with joy.

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I Don’t Want Curly Hair

Written and illustrated by Laura Ellen Anderson

Lauren Ellen Anderson’s book explores the challenges and adventures of a little girl who desperately wants to change her curly hair, only to at last discover the beauty and uniqueness as she embraces her natural curls. This tale is a great reminder of self-acceptance and the joy to be found in learning to love our own distinctive features.

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Crown: An Ode to the Fresh Cut

Written by Derrick Barnes, Illustrated by Gordon C. James

Crown burst onto the scene in 2017 as a vibrant celebration of a young black boy’s transformative barbershop experience. Crown received a Newbery Honor for author Derrick Barnes, a Caldecott Honor for illustrator Gordon C. James, and Coretta Scott King Awards for both. The book is an energetic homage to the fresh haircut that boosts confidence and embraces cultural pride, capturing the community spirit of the barbershop. It’s a fun, uplifting read that highlights the joy and swagger a great cut can bring.

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My Fade is Fresh

Written by Shauntay Grant, Illustrated by Kitt Thomas

When you’re a kid, sometimes it feels like no one is listening to you. In My Fade is Fresh, a little girl goes to get a fade. But everyone there keeps trying to convince her of other ways to style her hair. She stands her ground, makes her voice heard, and ends up with the hairstyle that makes her feel, well, fresh! The illustrations pop and the rhyming language takes you away. Snag a copy of this book today!

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The Good Hair Day

Written by Christian Trimmer, Illustrated by J Yang

Noah dreams of having long, beautiful, wavy hair for his birthday. This charming story explores self-expression and the joy of embracing who you truly are, with Noah ultimately getting the hair he wishes for. Noah’s parents buy him a fabulous purple wig—but that’s not all. They also show him how to wear and care for a wig. It’s a fantastic read for kids, encouraging them to express themselves with confidence and pride, as well as illustrating how parents can be hands-on in this expression.

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My Rainbow

Written by DeShanna Neal and Trinity Neal, Illustrated by Art Twink

Written by a mother and daughter duo, My Rainbow is a story about Trinity, a black autistic trans girl, and her desire to have long hair to feel more like a girl. Her mother decides to create a beautiful rainbow wig for her daughter that’s just as unique as Trinity. This book is layered with identities and shows how much love and support family members can give one another. It’s a very special read.

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Laxmi’s Mooch

Written by Shelly Anand, Illustrations by Nabi H. Ali

I cannot recommend this picture book enough! It’s a fun and lively story about a young girl named Laxmi who learns to rock her body hair with pride. After her classmates tease her about her upper lip hair (mooch), her parents help her see the beauty in her unique features. Laxmi shows her schoolmates that everyone has their own mooch and just how you can make it your own. This spirited tale is all about embracing what makes you different and loving yourself just the way you are.

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Bedtime Bonnet

Written by Nancy Redd, Illustrated by Nneka Myers

Chosen by the American Library Association Black Caucus as a “Best of the Best” children’s book for 2020, Bedtime Bonnet is a picture book that tells the story of a young girl and her family’s bedtime routine, which includes everyone putting on their bonnets, durags, and scarves to protect their hair while they sleep. The book celebrates the cultural practice of hair care in black families and highlights the importance of these routines in maintaining healthy hair. With vibrant illustrations and a heartwarming narrative, Bedtime Bonnet is a wonderful and relatable read for children, emphasizing the beauty of family traditions and self-care.

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Only a Trenza Away

A Tale of Trust and Strength

Written by Nadine Fonseca, Illustrated by Camilla Carrosinne

Only A Trenza Away is a sweet story about the bond between Xiomara and her papá. Papá and Xia connect through a nightly routine of him braiding her hair. While Xia is getting her trenzas done, she goes on imaginary adventures with her papá, including a thrilling journey through the jungle! This nightly ritual teaches Xia important virtues like patience and strength, all beautifully illustrated to capture the tenderness of their bond.

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We Are Little Feminists: Hair

Written by Brook Sitgraves Turner and Archaa Shrivastav

Part of the Little Feminist Book Club series, this is a board book that uses photographs submitted by readers to showcase all different types of hair. From locs to hijab-covered heads to bald heads, and even body hair, this book celebrates every and any type of hair you can think of. It’s sweet, celebratory, and inclusive. Your littlest ones will start learning to love their own hair right off the bat with this book.

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Hair Twins

Written by Raakhee Mirchandani, Illustrated by Holly Hatam

Fathers and daughters can have a lot in common. In Hair Twins, a Sikh father and his daughter connect through their shared hair care rituals. The book celebrates cultural pride and the connection their long hair symbolizes. With engaging illustrations and a sweet, playful narrative, this story highlights the joyful bond they find in something both simple and meaningful—their hair.

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What’s Silly Hair Day With No Hair?

Written by Norene Paulson, Illustrated by Camila Carrossine

This book tells a sweet story of friendship and inclusion. Bea, a child with alopecia areata―meaning she doesn’t have any hair—worries about “silly hair day” at school. So her friends come together with an imaginative solution, showing her that celebrations are for everyone. Camila Carrossine’s playful illustrations bring warmth and humor to a thoughtful tale, inspiring empathy and the power of kindness in overcoming challenges. It’s a great book for sparking meaningful conversations about differences.

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Under My Hijab

Written by Hena Khan, Illustrated by Aaliya Jaleel

In this book, author Hena Khan provides Muslim girls with relatable, loveable characters who each wear their hijab in their own way. For non-Muslim readers, Aaliya Jaleel’s colorful illustrations and gentle storytelling open up a window into the beauty and diversity of the traditional Muslim headscarf. The book offers a welcoming glimpse into a tradition often underrepresented in children’s literature, fostering understanding and respect for different religious and cultural expressions.

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Princess Hair

Written and illustrated by Sharee Miller

The book celebrates the beauty of black kids’ hair by showcasing princesses with afros, braids, puffs, and curls. EacThe book celebrates the beauty of black kids’ hair by showcasing princesses with afros, braids, puffs, and curls. Each unique hairstyle radiates personality, showing that hair can be as distinctive as the person who wears it. This joyful story fosters pride in kids’ natural hair and highlights the loveliness of diverse styles, creating an affirming experience that honors individuality and heritage.h unique hairstyle radiates personality, showing that hair can be as distinctive as the person who wears it. This joyful story fosters pride in kids’ natural hair and highlights the loveliness of diverse styles, creating an affirming experience that honors individuality and heritage.

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My Powerful Hair

Written by Carole Lindstrom, Illustrated by Steph Littlebird

This is a moving picture book that celebrates Indigenous American identity, resilience, and the cultural significance of hair. The story follows a young girl growing her hair long, connecting with her ancestors’ traditions after her grandmother was forced to cut hers in boarding school. Through lyrical storytelling and vibrant art, My Powerful Hair emphasizes the value of heritage, family, and reclaiming cultural pride.

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My Hair is Like Yours

Written by St. Clair Detrick-Jules, Illustrated by Tabitha Brown

When talking about self-love and hair love, it’s important to make sure we include titles for the youngest kids, too! My Hair is Like Yours is a wonderful board book for little readers that expresses a love of black hair through photographs and rhyme. It leverages two great ways to engage babies and tots in books by featuring real photos of girls and boys, along with a mirror for little ones to literally see themselves and love the hair they see.

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Hair to Share

Written and illustrated by Sylvia Walker

Suri has more hair than any child she knows. One day she meets Amaya, who is experiencing hair loss, and Suri decides to share her beautiful hair by donating it for a wig. Amaya feels loved and confident, and their friendship blossoms. This touching story of generosity highlights the impact of small, caring acts. With warmth and empathy, Walker encourages kids in supporting others, making Hair to Share a heartfelt read about compassion and the bonds that connect us.

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Hair Oil Magic

Written and illustrated by Anu Chouhan

Every Sunday is “Magic Hair Day” in Meenu’s house. Meenu embraces the “magic” of hair oiling—a cherished tradition shared with her mother and grandmother. As Meenu learns to apply fragrant oils herself, she discovers that the true magic lies in the closeness of family and cultural connection. This tender story honors tradition and the love passed through generations, offering a beautiful reflection on the rituals that shape our sense of belonging.

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Maggie Sinclair, Will You Please Fix Your Hair?!

By Hilary Grant Dixon, Illustrated by Gabrielle Howell

In this book, Maggie’s parents are out of town and Gram is coming to stay with her. The girl loves spending time with her grandmother, but every morning Gram is disappointed in the way Maggie wears her natural hair. Despite Gram’s daily refrain of “Maggie Sinclair, will you please fix your hair?” Maggie stands tall and proud with her bantu knots, cornrows, and afro, ultimately reminding Gram of the beauty of her own hair. This story, based on the author’s own life experiences, uplifts self-love and engages kids with its rhyming refrain, which they’ll love to join in on during re-readings.

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Chrysta Naron (she/her) is an early childhood educator, curriculum specialist, and the founder of the education nonprofit Read the Room. She believes everything is better with glitter! Follow her on Instagram.

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