Author Visits Archives - Multicultural Children's Book Day

Emily: 10-Year-Old Champion of Rainforest Animals in Need

September 27, 2018 by Rebecca Flansburg 2 Comments

As a publisher of beautiful children’s books, Crickhollow Books is committed to quality over quantity.

Crickhollow Books and Crispin Books are intertwined imprints of their indie book publishing house that is based in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. They are also known for their amazing catalog of picture books that shine the spotlight on topics with social or environmental impact. With titles like Doyli to the Rescue, Tony and His Elephants, and Tortuga Squad, they have much to be proud of!

Crickhollow also offers a lot of middle-grade fiction focused on good values and a variety of books for adults, including books for writers on how to write well and get published.

“We love all our books just like parents love their kids,” shared Crickhollow Editor, Philip Martin. “Our homepage is a great showcase of what we do. As an indie press, we are like a parent that helps to bring something new and fresh into the world and then works for years to help it find its place, to grow to be part of a literary community of caring readers. Although we are microscopic in comparison to the big mega-houses, we work hard and take risks to produce quality books that can make a difference.”

Crickhollow Books That Make a Difference:

Emily: 10-Year-Old Champion of Rainforest Animals in Need by Cathleen Burnham

(Available September 2018)

Meet Emily, a girl who is active in a youth conservation program to save rainforest animals in western Costa Rica. She helps care for an orphaned baby sloth at an animal sanctuary and participates in other activities from dramatic presentations and clean-up efforts to the sponsorship of rope bridges installed to help squirrel monkeys cross busy roads near her small town. The story highlights the impact young people can have on protecting local wild animals and preserving natural habitats.

Emily: 10-Year-Old Champion of Rainforest Animals in Need is a photodocumentary book by journalist and writer Cathleen Burnham, the fourth in her WAKA (World Association of Kids and Animals) series of books featuring kids involved in wild animal rescue efforts around the globe, praised by School Library Journal as “books about compassionate efforts by children that inspire readers to take positive action … a wonderful addition to most collections”.

This book introduces Emily, a ten-year-old girl active in a youth conservation program to save rainforest animals in western Costa Rica called Kids Saving The Rainforest (KSTR).

Emily helps care for an orphaned baby sloth at a local animal sanctuary and participates in other activities from dramatic skits for tourists and clean-up sweeps to the sponsorship of rope bridges to help squirrel monkeys cross busy roads near her small town.

The story highlights the impact young people can have on protecting local wild animals and preserving natural habitats.

The conservation message is clear and is skillfully blended into the glimpse of everyday life of active kids and their families who are involved in small-scale, grassroots animal-rescue efforts.

This is Book 4 in the WAKA series of books featuring kids involved in wild animal rescue projects around the world.

About the Author

Cathleen Burnham is also the author of the highly acclaimed books, Doyli to the Rescue, Tony and His Elephants, and Tortuga Squad.

For the past fifteen years, Cathleen has traveled the globe, bringing back stories of the world’s remote cultures, from the Hodzabe People of Tanzania to the hill tribes of Thailand to the peoples of the Amazon. Her work in all areas of television production has included stints at NBC, PBS, and Fox. For the past eighteen years, she’s also been a Wildlife Rehabilitator under New York state D.E.C. board member Barbara Hollands’ license. This experience has given her an insight into animal behavior that’s served her well in both her writing and photography of wildlife across the world.

Cathleen is drawn to journalism because she believes in its paramount importance in a society and because she loves to learn the stories behind the planet’s people, animals, and places.

“Cathleen Burnham’s children’s book is a delightful book for all ages. It is the best kind of nonfiction – engaging as well as informative…. Burnham shows us how even young children can make a difference in the world. Young and old alike will be enthralled with this book.” – Natalie Kinsey-Warnock, Children’s Book Author

BONUS MATERIALS! To learn more about our WAKA (World Association of Kids and Animals) series and the stories behind each book, plus teacher’s guides and more resources, visit: www.WAKABooks.org

A Q&A with Author Cathleen Burnham

1. What inspired you to choose this story?

Cathleen: The ingenious, simple, and inexpensive solution of monkey bridges — that a child came up with!

The ropes strung across busy highways saved so many endangered monkeys’ lives. No big organization needed. No big studies launched. Just some kids thinking up an idea and putting it into action. I thought this story needed to be told to as wide an audience as possible.

In Costa Rica, as humans expand their towns into animals’ territory, many endangered animals are threatened by cars, or by eating foods given to them by tourists that make them sick. I also loved that Emily approached animal protection from several angles: creatively writing a play to educate tourists, helping at a wildlife rehabilitation center, and taking a few minutes now and then to help with clean-up sweeps with other kids. I want the message of these books to be that kids can do a few things in their free time to help local wildlife and make a positive impact. Emily was a great, real-life role model of ways kids can help.

I hope Emily: Champion of Rainforest Animals sparks excitement for kids and gets them thinking about how they can help the environment, wherever they live.

2. In your own words, tell us what the book is about?

Cathleen: Emily: Champion of Rainforest Animals tells about a real-life 10-year-old girl active in programs to save rainforest animals in western Costa Rica. She helps care for an orphaned baby sloth at an animal sanctuary and participates in other activities from dramatic presentations and clean-up efforts to the sponsorship of rope bridges to help squirrel monkeys cross busy roads near her small town. The story highlights the impact young people can have on protecting local wild animals and preserving natural habitats. This is Book 4 in the WAKA series of books featuring kids involved in wild animal rescue projects around the world.

3. If you were to let parents, teachers, and librarians know ONE THING about Emily: 10-Year-Old Champion of Rainforest, what would that one thing be?

Cathleen: Kids can have a real impact on the world around them! Kids are not just the next generations of caretakers of our planet, they also can do things now to make a difference. The WAKA series (4 books so far) are stories of kid power, stories about real kids to inspire kids and parent to empathize with the wild world around them, to see how we are all connected on this planet, and to find ways to make a difference.

4. If you were to give any advice to the those who dream of writing and publishing a book, what advice would you give?

Cathleen: Write often! Even if you feel your writing is terrible at first. It WILL get better and eventually get to be excellent if you just keep writing. Also, don’t limit your story trying to imitate what everyone else has already written or worrying about who will publish it. That can get in the way of your imagination. Just tell the story that spills out of your imagination, and then make it the best it can be.

5. What about Emily: 10-Year-Old Champion of Rainforest do you like best?

Cathleen: I like all of the things that happen in the story, like the harrowing story of the baby sloth falling out of the tree, or the juvenile squirrel monkey saving the rest of its monkey troupe. But my favorite is the sloth walk — Emily taking the baby sloth for walks in the forest to help it learn about its environment. I loved that a kid got to do this, to hold a baby sloth and give it tons of love.

Kids Saving The Rainforest, featured in the Emily picture book, is such a remarkable organization.

It was started in Costa Rica by a group of kids and adults who had no qualifications except loving wildlife and wanting to protect it. I was so lucky to get to visit them, and I even got to take the baby sloth on a sloth walk myself. The sloth’s fur was very coarse. You really did have to hold a stuffed animal against your body, because those claws are sharp and they hurt when they cling to you – we humans don’t have thick, coarse fur to protect us. The little sloth moved very slowly, and it was adorable the way it would slooooowly turn its head to look at me with big, soft eyes. It was one of my favorite experiences.

To learn more about our WAKA (World Association of Kids and Animals) series and the stories behind each book, plus teacher’s guides and more resources, visit: www.WAKABooks.org

Connect with Cathleen and Crickhollow Books via their website.

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Facebook for Business and Authors – Thumbs Up or Thumbs Down?

August 29, 2018 by Valarie Budayr

Guest blog post by Susan Mayfield of Reduce the Chaos

With the recent changes on Facebook and the decreased reach for business pages, a lot of business people and authors are re-evaluating keeping a business page on Facebook. Some have made the drastic decision to delete their Facebook business pages or abandon them.

Stop! Before you follow them and delete your business from Facebook, you might want some facts to help make a more informed decision. I understand the frustration of the reduced reach on Facebook unless you pay for ads. However, there are still some valid points to having a business page and a quality, active presence. There are also some things that are working for organic reach if you have an engaged community. Until there is a more viable alternative, Facebook is one of the main places where the action is going to be when it comes to prospecting for clients and customers.

We used to have the local “Yellow Pages” to look up a business and contact them by phone, or just drop by during business hours. Today, most people don’t look for businesses that way, they look for businesses online. Most of the time people look for a business from their phones.

Websites are good, however, many people also look up a business on the following social sites: Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and LinkedIn. Will people find your business on those sites? If they don’t find your business, it’ a given they will find others who offer similar services during their search.

The crucial thing to keep in mind is: What will potential clients and customers see when they go to those social sites? Clear contact information? Service and/or product information? Interesting images? Recent posts and activity from the business?

If you have ever gone to a Facebook page and nothing has been posted since 2013, I am sure you are left wondering if the business is still around. Don’t let your business page sit stagnant and unattended.

Know the numbers to make an informed business decision!

Some stats*:

Facebook Has More Than 2 Billion Active Users on Facebook
Facebook has Over 1 billion daily active users
Demographics: 83% of Women & 75% of Men Use Facebook
People Access Facebook an Average 8 Times Per Day

Businesses:

60 million businesses have a Facebook Page
94% of businesses use Facebook
64% of businesses use Instagram

Potential Customers and Clients:

60% visit Facebook before going to your business
80% more inclined to purchase after visiting your Facebook page
62% use the information from your page to make a decision to use your services

“What happens if your business isn’t on Facebook, but other similar businesses are?”

What Facebook wants Business Pages to have:

#1 Meaningful Interaction

#2 Activity: Interaction and engagement on the page by followers and by the page.

Some things to keep in mind:

If no one is interacting, then the reach will decrease even more
Facebook gives more weight to shares and comments, then the reactions to the posts

How do you get more reach on Facebook?

Do the following:

Get people to react to the posts (great content)
Likes, comments are a good start
To ensure visibility get reactions (not just likes)
Super important: Always reply – response time and Replies to comments are tracked and rated by Facebook

When should you post content?

When the majority of your followers are online
If you post when your followers are online, then you will get more reward from Facebook by increased reach (Yes, Facebook is tracking the posts against when your people are online and this will affect your reach)
Mix it up by sometimes posting at varying times to reach people who are online when most of your followers aren’t to be sure they are served too.

IMPORTANT DOES:

Fill out your business page profile completely, especially your contact info!
Sharing trending stories is a plus.
Use targeted audiences for shares
Schedule posts directly in Facebook**
Upload videos to Facebook, not from a Youtube link for better reach
Use posting to Nessenger to share content (if your followers are receptive to this)
Use sub titles ON THE VIDEO so the video can be viewed with sound off and it will usually get move viewers watching to the end. (Videos with higher completion rates get more reach)

**Note, Facebook is giving preference for authentic posts (not scheduled)

The stats from before the changes showed very little difference between the reach of scheduled posts using a third-party scheduler and using the scheduling option in Facebook. This may change. We encourage you to experiment using a scheduler mixed with authentic posts and posts scheduled in Facebook to see which is working best for your business.

Things to Avoid doing on Facebook:

Avoid sharing questionable stories (those that might be fake, but you aren’t sure)
Avoid frequent promotional posts
Avoid links outside of Facebook like your website. Facebook wants people to stay on Facebook and they don’t want OUTBOUND LINKS!!!
Posting things that cause people to hide your posts, marking posts as spam or as inappropriate, or “unliking” your page

What about advertising on Facebook?

Boosted posts are not recommended in general: this can be a waste of money, especially if you don’t have targeted audiences for the posts set up before boosting.

Use ads. Cost per click has dropped so they are more cost effective.

*************************************************

How TO USE FACEBOOK to GROW YOUR BUSINESS or Author Platform

First, you need to know who your customer IS – this helps you to find them in a variety of ways and to create a message that appeals to them (where are they hanging out? Then hang out there too)

Grab their Attention with these:

– How to Videos

– Offer something of value for free/Special Offers or Discounts

– PDF guides/cheat sheets (downloads from your website)

– Giveaways

IMAGES: use them to get attention by using images that draw attention with **Emotion/Motion/Color** on your images. This means eye catching and interesting images.

Build Relationships

– collect emails through your website

– use an ad linked to Messenger (don’t be spammy with messenger ads)

– nurture: give them more contact with your business to get sales

Followup – this leads to more sales, referrals

Customer Service – have great customer service so your clients/customers come back and refer others to you.

The best way to get people from being just “on your Facebook page” is to lead the contact off Facebook and onto your website then to sign up for your email list. Through your email list is where you can contact them on a regular basis, no matter what Facebook is doing with your page visibility.

If you want to know if Facebook is worth your efforts, look at the analytics for your website and where your leads are coming from.

Most important of all, if you have a page on Facebook, make the best possible use of it with consistent and engaging content.

The one thing you can be certain of, there will continue to be changed on social media. Those who adapt will continue to benefit from being on social media.

Still unsure how to get more out of your social media or make Facebook work for you? You can find more information at Reduce the Chaos Virtual Assisting and Social Media Management

*Stats were taken from a combination of sources:

Sprout Social

Tech Crunch

Top Dog

About Susan Mayfield and Reduce the Chaos:

My goal is promoting growing Business Owners, Entrepreneurs, Authors, and Organizations, to increase their visibility to their prospective clients and their current clients. The goal is for this increased visibility to result in more client satisfaction and increased revenue for you, the client.

Reduce the Chaos supports Businesses and Authors to reach more of their ideal clients and customers through Facebook/Social Media: creating business accounts; content creation and scheduling, managing multiple social accounts and monitoring. Email Marketing Services: Set up and use Mailchimp, Aweber, Get Response or other marketing email programs to send emails and email newsletters.

Find me on Facebook

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A Walk in Nature, Une Promenade en Nature {An English/French Picture Book}

July 18, 2018 by Valarie Budayr

Guest Post By Author Jesica Nkouaga

So What Do Nature and Children Have in Common?

They grow! They grow especially when they are nurtured and cared for by someone who loves them.

Nature and children are two things that author Jesica Nkouaga loves. Jesica’s love for nature inspired her to draw pictures of the natural surroundings around her, both at home and abroad during her ESL teaching adventures overseas.

Author Jesica Nkouaga

Although not an artist by training, Jesica took deep comfort in drawing the countryside landscapes that she saw around her, especially while teaching English abroad in Thailand, Jordan, and Honduras. Many of the drawings in this book are a result of over ten years of traveling and drawing. The book also includes drawings of the countryside near the farm where Jesica grew up in Minnesota.

It also includes drawings of hobbies that Jesica and her family members engage in such as riding a unicycle and playing guitar.

After ten years of collecting drawings, Jesica came up with a way to put all of the things she loves together. She put the nature drawings together to create a basic language learning book for children.

As an ESL teacher, language teaching and learning are something that Jesica does daily, so it made sense to create a book about language learning for children.

Why include the French language, you might ask?

French connects with Jesica’s love for learning new languages, and it is one of her lifetime goals to learn French— the native language of her husband who is from Cameroon. By including a French translation in her book, it not only helps her learn and practice French, but it aids others who are learning and practicing French especially children! She is grateful to her husband, Abel, who enthusiastically and patiently helped to translate the book into French.

It is Jesica’s hope that children and parents will be inspired by the colorful and vibrant drawings of nature depicting different settings around the world, and hopefully, some French can be learned along the way. In this book, enjoy learning French and enjoy a walk in nature— une promenade en nature!

Connect with Jesica on her Facebook Page.

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A New “Must Read” #DiverseYA Book | The Length of String by Elissa Weissman

July 14, 2018 by Rebecca Flansburg

I (Becky) can’t remember what came first; me discovering a gorgeous book called The Length of String, or author Elissa Weissman reaching out to MCBD to share news of this novel with us.

Either way, the moment I saw the cover and the summary of the story, I couldn’t hit the “Buy” button fast enough.

The Length of String by Elissa Weissman

The Length of a String is about a black, adopted, Jewish girl who discovers her great-grandmother’s diary from World War II. Part of the book is the diary itself, which takes place mostly in Brooklyn in 1941. This historical story alternates with the contemporary story of Imani in present-day Baltimore, reading the diary and beginning to think about family in a new way.

Elissa is also the author of the awesome Nerd Camp series that has garnered rave reviews from School Library Journal and The Horn Book.

About The Length of String

Imani knows exactly what she wants as her big bat mitzvah gift: to find her birth parents. She loves her family and her Jewish community in Baltimore, but she has always wondered where she came from, especially since she’s black and almost everyone she knows is white. Then her mom’s grandmother–Imani’s great-grandma Anna–passes away, and Imani discovers an old journal among her books. It’s Anna’s diary from 1941, the year she was twelve and fled Nazi-occupied Luxembourg alone, sent by her parents to seek refuge in Brooklyn, New York. Anna’s diary records her journey to America and her new life with an adoptive family of her own. And as Imani reads the diary, she begins to see her family, and her place in it, in a whole new way. Engrossing, heartfelt, and captivating from start to finish, The Length of a String combines contemporary and historical fiction in one moving story that shows family is far more than genetics. (for ages 10-14)

When we asked Elissa what her inspiration for THE LENGTH OF A STRING was, she had the most interesting story to share!

“The inspiration for The Length of a String came from three different places,” she recalled. “Growing up, one of my closest friends had been adopted from Mexico. She and her sister, who was adopted from within the U.S., were raised Jewish, like me. Thinking about their experience—especially what it might be like to look different from everyone else at Hebrew school—gave me the idea for Imani.”

Elissa then shared that the second idea came from an episode of “The Diane Rehm Show” on NPR in which many people were calling in and sharing their stories about being children of Holocaust survivors. One caller revealed that her grandparents had saved up money to send their children to America, but they could only afford to send two. When they got to the boat, the smuggler said, “Sorry, the price just doubled.” Now they could only afford to send one.

“I heard that and immediately began thinking about the story of the young girl who had to go to America by herself. It gave me the idea for Imani’s great-grandmother, Anna,” she added.

The third piece of this wonderful book came from Elissa’s own family history. “When I started writing the books, I was fortunate to still have four living grandparents, three of whom grew up in New York City in the 1930s and 40s. I sat down with them and recorded them talking about their childhoods and, with my Grandpa Marty, his career as a furrier. I was excited about the opportunity to incorporate their memories and stories into a book. But I’d never written anything historical before, and I was intimidated by the research involved. I decided to try combining my contemporary, adopted-character idea with my historical idea as a way to ease myself into this book. Once I started writing, I realized that the two stories were meant to go together all along”

I (Becky) have just started digging into this book and I can assure you, I’m hooked. Putting this book down to get some work done is going to be a challenge! When I asked Elissa what she wanted teachers, librarians, and parents to know about The Length of String, she had this to say;

“Though a good portion of the book takes place during World War II, this is not your typical Holocaust story. Also, the ending is really good!” she shared. “The Length of a String is different from my other books—it’s for slightly older readers, it contains a historical story in addition to a contemporary one, and the subject matter is more serious, though it still contains a good amount of my trademark humor.”

Elissa’s website is also bursting with amazing teacher resources and curriculum for all of her books. Learn more at ebweissman.com. You can also connect with Elissa on Facebook and Twitter.

About The Author

Elissa Brent Weissman is an award-winning author of novels for young readers. Best known for the popular Nerd Camp series, she and her books have been featured in Entertainment Weekly, The Washington Post, The Los Angeles Times, The Huffington Post, NPR’s “Here and Now,” and more. Named one of CBS Baltimore’s Best Authors in Maryland, Elissa lives in Baltimore City, where she teaches creative writing to children, college students, and adults. Learn more at ebweissman.com.

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Alex Asks About Auntie’s Airplane Day (An Adoption Day Story)

July 5, 2018 by Rebecca Flansburg

Sometimes the idea for a great diverse picture book for kids comes from the more genuine and authentic sources. That is exactly the case with Alex Asks About Auntie’s Airplane Day by Carolyn Wilhelm.

The idea for this book occurred to Carolyn when she saw her-2-year-old grandson watch his Auntie Betsy from South Korea, and seem to wonder how she fit in the otherwise white family.

Who knows what he was thinking, but it appeared to be he was noticing Auntie’s eyes and skin color. Carolyn decided this book could help him and other young children with older, adopted relatives, understand their families.

“This book is the story of one family’s airplane day party as seen through the eyes of the youngest nephew of the aunt who was adopted by a white family from Korea over 30 years ago,” Carolyn recalled. “Some people call such events gotcha day or adoption day celebrations. The twist is that the child is not the adopted person in the story.”

Alex Asks About Auntie’s Airplane Day: An Adoption Day Story by Carolyn Wilhelm and illustrator Pieter Els.

Alex Asks About Auntie’s Airplane Day is a multigenre fiction story based on a nonfiction annual event, the adoption day celebration sometimes called “airplane day” or “gotcha day.” This is the story of how an adult aunt adopted from South Korea fits in an otherwise white family in Minnesota in the United States. It is meant for the young family relatives to help them understand how a family could have racial diversity. Celebrations such as airplane day and gotcha day are a good way to help family members with such memories.

This sweet picture book is a great way to share the beauty and celebration of adoption while letting a student, friend or family member who has been involved with an international adoption see their story in the pages of a book. This book is also great for any parent or educators trying to help a young child to understand more about the wider world.

Why Teachers, Librarians, and Parents will love this Book

“If your classroom or story time group has children who live in multi-race families (perhaps because they are adopted), they wish to see and hear about themselves in stories,” Carolyn noted. “Although book publishers have more multicultural inclusion in recent years, it is still important for teachers and librarians to make a point to be sure and find books reflective of their students for read-aloud time.”

1 Adoption Story-3 Ways to Read it

Another wonderful benefit of Alex Asks About Auntie’s Airplane Day is that it comes in three different reading formats; paperback, Kindle Paperwhite, eBook, and Kindle Fire interactive eBook. This book will appeal to kids in the Pre-K through Grade 2 age group.

About The Author

Carolyn Wilhelm-Author and CEO of Wise Owl Factory

Carolyn has been a long-time supporter of MCBD and we appreciate her more than words can say. Her love of kids, books, and education are expressed in everything she does and she is one smart lady!

Carolyn Wilhelm has been writing mostly free lessons for teachers online since 1988. When blogging became popular about 2011, she began her own website and blog to share elementary education resources. She has had lessons published by the National Council of Teachers of English on their ReadWriteThink.org website. Prior to 2011, she used to have her free-lance lessons published by Good Apple and other teacher publications. She taught school for 28 years and found her students enjoyed the stories she wrote. Finally, she has begun writing and self-publishing children’s books.

When asked who her writing inspiration was in life, Carolyn had this to say; “My daughter is my biggest influencer as she is from South Korea and read books about mostly white children when she was growing up. This did not hinder her love of reading. She is an advocate of Multicultural Children’s Book Day and encourages my involvement each year. My husband has patiently proofread countless drafts and has been a writing mentor and supporter.”

Carolyn is a member of the National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE), which has published four of her lessons on ReadWriteThink.org. Her educational resources are for sale on Teachers Pay Teachers as well as Teacher’s Notebook. Previous publications include a story in an anthology Mom for the Holidays: Stories of Love, Laughter & Tantrums at Christmas & Hanukkah by Nolan and Demas.

She lives in Minnesota and enjoys time with her grandchildren, creating lessons, reading, and being involved in local community center activities. She loves taking time out in nature to observe her favorite bird, owls. She is Red Cross certified in pediatric through adult first aid and CPR.

Connect with Carolyn and Wise Owl Factory on Facebook, YouTube, Twitter and LinkedIn. Grab your copy of on Amazon.

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