Independent Readers Infinite Possibilities Exploring Series Fiction The Power of Story

hello hello hello welcome all i'm lizette serrano i'm so excited to be here and have your attention for the power story present speaker series we proudly launched his virtual series in august and this marks our fifth event with one more to go in december the topic of today's panel is independent readers infinite possibilities this reminds us that this reminds of the critical role that chapter books or reading longer books play in children's literacy some may look down on chapter books as being easy fluffy or light on content no chapter books are the coolest one of the most important things you can give readers to help them succeed as one chapter opens or closes in the book their readers are developing their own interpretation about the story character development and how the story lingers in our minds in between readings it's not about how many minutes you read or love of book it's about supporting an independent mind independence is fueled by original thought and our authors are the secrets to writing for different age groups is to have deep respect and understanding for their readers their work offers not one story but series of stories when you where you can revisit your favorite group of friends isn't that the best craziness sertravat grew up behind the counter of her parents thai restaurant in small texas town with her nose stuck in book she spent decade working the science museum field where she designed programs and exhibits to get kids excited about science and stem she transported her talent and passions to storytelling and is the author of many books including the changing link series wish in the dark and all 13 non-fiction account of the thai cave rescue published by scholastic christine introduces us to brand new fun-filled chapter book series that answers the question what if frozen's elsa went to regular school princess luna is full of spunk and encourages self-acceptance as she navigates family school and her magical abilities like flying speaking of princesses and truly madly royally talented author debbie rogol gave young adult readers royal romance with sparkling humor and all about ruling your own destiny next year debbie is serving us more rom-com and black girl joy with simone breaks all the rules debbie dipped her writing skills and co-authored the hope chapter book series with actress and activists alyssa milano hope robert is 11 years old she loves swimming galaxy girl comic books and her two rescue dogs hopefully there's always goody champion cause defend underdog and pop possibly even save the future in the third book installment hope is running for sixth grade class president in an effort to win her classmates hope makes some promises she can't keep holds her ability kindness empathy and can-do attitude will inspire generations of do-gooders born in puerto rico and raised in mexico melissa christina marquez is fiercely proud hispanic marine biologist wildlife educator and uses our platform to advocate for women in latinx and stem fields and provides minorities with the tools they need to succeed she is also the founder of the fans united initiative program that highlights diverse sharks the threats they face and the scientists who study them melissa joins the scholastic family with her debut series titled wild survival twelve-year-old adriana and her other brother faye travel the globe with their parents the host of suspenseful nature show called can you guess wild survival the show features daring animal rescues and the work the family does at their animal sanctuary based on melissa's incredible real life wildlife encounters trust me go look it up go google after this event this action-packed series includes real animal facts an author's note from melissa in every book and today moderating with us is julia torres or mama as her students call her has been teacher librarian for over decade in public education julia regularly facilitates workshops and professional conversations about equity anti-bias anti-racist education and is co-founder of disruptex.org she remains passionately committed to amplifying student voices by any means possible teaching aside from her family is julia's greatest love so know she's in the right place and we're lucky to have her here all right intros have been served now it's time to cook up this conversation christina take it away great thank you so much lizette i'm so excited to be here with these wonderful women i'm huge fan and this is big honor for me yes so am the author of the diary of an ice princess chapter book series and there are six books in this series it is about princess lena who is has everything that any young girl might imagine that she wants she lives in castle in the clouds she her mother is princess she comes from long royal line but really what she wants more than anything is to go to regular school on the ground her best friend claudia goes to regular elementary school and the two girls conspire to somehow get princess lena to go to school so she can be with her best friend and her parents agree to it but she has to keep her magic secret and she has to keep the fact that she's princess secret too so you can imagine that's not easy many snowy and icy hijinks ensue and lena has to figure out you know who she is she has to figure out how to control her powers and her magic and in order to do that she really has to accept that the things that make her different from everybody else is actually what makes her special lena's friendship with claudia is big part of the series the girls are always supporting each other they both really love stem and science melissa so it's so nice to be on this panel with you fellow stem lover and and lena's family also plays big role in the series so my family was really important to me so was able to incorporate lot of lena's magical royal family into lot of the story lines so her grandfather is the north wind and lena you know loves her family and relies on them lot but they also it's really big legacy to live up to so there's lot of pressure that she puts on herself to be good enough for her family so that was also something that came from personal experience but yeah i'm just really really excited to be here and excited to kick it over to debbie to talk about her series thank you am very excited to be here among you two ladies and all the whole team on this call thank you for having me so yes am debbie rigo and am the co-author of the hope series with alyssa milano who is an actor and activist and with eric keys who is he's tv animator and he's the illustrator of hope this was this is such fun series to work on feel super lucky that i've gotten to know hope over the the last few books hope is she's sixth grader who loves science and she's part of the science club at jfk middle and she also is super passionate about helping her community helping her friends when she finds need for example or she has an idea on how she can help friend or place in her community like the dog shelter she really jumps in with both feet she is she has like this this urgency to help in any way possible she's super ambitious about her plans to help and she approaches what she does as scientist would you know she even like applies scientific method as she's trying to determine how she can best you know fill fulfill need and so oftentimes you know she fumbles with these endeavors and at times she gets in over her head but thankfully all the time she has her friends and her family that she can go to for help to get back on track and to resolve things it's just been really great experience and i'm excited to to work on hope i'm so excited to pick up my own copy and love that both of you have the sort of stem or science kind of underlying it because that's what my book is all about so am bringing wildlife into readers laps through the wild survival series and it's one of those things of like have you ever wanted to explore cuba's mangroves swim through coral reefs and come base to snorkel with sharks find elusive jaguars in forest well now you can with adriana villalobos and as your guide essentially she's 12 year old who has an older brother fae and they travel the globe with their family with their parents rescuing animals and taking them back to their sanctuary until they're ready to go back out to nature and so they've been recording all of this all these adventures through youtube they recently got an offer to take the youtube show to big tv network and adriana is absolutely thrilled because so far she's only been behind the scenes but now she gets to join the rest of her family on screen so she can't wait to bring her passion for animals to wider audience so i'm really excited to kind of have this series out there because it's based on some of my real wildlife survival encounters and it includes real animal facts illustrations of the creatures that are mentioned in the book it has whole entire section where you can actually learn spanish with the via lobos family and it of course includes survival tips on how to thrive in the wild so very excited for this to be my debut book and also my debut series with the scholastic family just love your work and hearing you talk more about your books is so exciting and love that your characters have this common thread of persistence and bravery it's just so and it's so amazing like just how smart they are using the tools that they have either through their own common interests their friends but it's it's just it's inspiring it's really it's really wonderful boys for boys and girls i'm going to invite julian says commentaries take us deeper talk about your craft talk about your stories and your characters and welcome julia thank you so much for having me i'm excited to be here with you all and to talk about your books the first thing that would love to to hear from you about is you know we've seen the rise in librarianship and language arts of series popularity know that lot of folks teach for example percy jackson in seventh grade it's really popular thing to get kids excited about the first book in that series and then you know from there they will just read the rest so considering the popularity of that one and goosebumps and the babysitter's club we know that young people like series so what are some of the things that you liked or the series that you read when you were kid and what are some things that are special about series books instead of just singular books what do you think debbie series is sort of like reuniting with friend which is always sweet when was growing up was huge nancy drew fan when think back to like how excited i'd be to discover new nancy drew book in the series it helps me appreciate just why series are popular as kid like would savor every moment of my new encounter with the book so think that you know for me nancy drew was an old series so the long longest would have to wait would be like if somebody you know had it out at the library you know but but but but when think about those moments and just you know just the the joy and the anticipation can understand you know why it's so so special series are so special to young readers like that idea of being addicted and so you just want to know you go from one and then you if the series has 15 books then you just want to make sure that you read them all and that's how it happens at school lot of students that have read naruto that way but remember my babysitter's club you know stack had all of them in numerical order on my little shelf organized and it was really important to me and would read them out of order sometimes too and read them multiple times so that was definitely something that remember being addicted to collecting them and reading them christina what are your thoughts on the the magic and joy of reading series yeah mean everything that debbie said she reminded me that loved nancy drew forgot about nancy drew that was series that really liked was really into fantasy as kid and still love fantasy so was reading like you know the lion the witch in the war the narnia chronicles and susan cooper's the dark is rising series all the tolkien books like even the really obscure ones that not everybody reads didn't love contemporary books but did read the babysitter's club and remember my best friend was so into them and looking back feel like that was those are the first books that had diverse cast of characters that can remember that's it's definitely the first time can remember reading having an asian american character in the book series so now i'm just wondering you know if that's what was drawing me to it otherwise you know didn't usually pick up siri books like that that were set in the real world prefer to live not in the real world guess was very much that way too the babysitter's club was an exception and think it was because saw myself reflected in some of those stories melissa what do you think what are some thoughts that that you that are coming to mind about series that you liked when you were little or ones that you like now mean they've both kind of both set them you know love series that transport me to different places and different times kind of like my own sort of time traveling experience so really loved magic treehouse and harry potter for me growing up you know those series and really any series get the reader to develop bond with the main characters throughout the books so you cheer them on you feel sad you're mad for them you want the best for them and they become friends that and that friendship kind of gets strengthened with each book so love that about series and know when it comes to an end you're really sad because you don't get to have that friend in your life anymore unless you start from the first book and read it all over again really good point that as the series evolve you do get really attached to the characters and it gives you sense of satisfaction seeing them go through journeys and develop you know over longer span absolutely guess you could compare it to how so many of our young people love to binge netflix watching as well yeah and through my daughter want to say that i'm learning about you know the series that are are huge now and you know and introducing her to some of the old series too so and you you you see through her see through her sort of like that that excitement that anticipation she you know she loves christina's series know she's gonna love she's gonna love yours melissa and also like you know kelly styling ryan's kelly starlings lions is series jada the scientist and princess in black is huge for younger kids but so it's it's joy seeing just the connection that young readers are making with with new and old series and so you you you understand that you know the popularity might might last you know this this might be the next generation will be it'll be popular with the next generation as well for these reasons there's so many good series being written right now and wonder you know debbie and christina you have also written books that are not part of series so how do you approach writing differently when it comes to you know series you know you plan out that you're going to have long time to develop certain things but when it's just standalone book how does that process differ this is so funny whenever people ask me about my process i'm like should know how to talk about my process better but feel like the best analogy can come up with it would be like if you're going into writing or planning movie versus planning like series sitcom so you know you know like in sitcom it's really all about you create this cast of characters that has so many different potentials for lots of problems and lots of drama or lots of comedy and every episode and sitcom you know you've got your main character so like princess lena is always the main character but in each book she it i'm bringing in i'm pulling in piece of her family so they're playing like bigger role like so sometimes it's her mom sometimes it's her relationship with her granddad or one of her cousins is jack frost so he you know comes and stays with her so think to me that's the best that's the only way can think about it to make sense that when you're thinking about novel and planning that out to me it's much more like sweeping with this character arc that kind of ends because it's like movie that's ended and you walk out of the theater weeping yeah or weeping with joy and as far as debbie's go from like truly madly royally would you say that the the focus on plot and characterization is more it's larger or more intense whereas you have more time to kind of plan it out over series of books yeah mean think for me am interested what the other authors say but for me it's like for lena because since it's series you know in each book she's going to change she's going to grow and become more of who she is but you know the character that created is someone who is always going to keep growing like it's not like this one big emotional change that happens and is complete where whereas that might be more the case in one of my novels it's like you know she's young she's young girl and she's she's going to be going through lots of different things throughout the course of the series don't know what is what do you think debbie yeah you know in standalones feel like there's so much that goes into establishing the layers of the characters and their worlds to you know just establishing like the all the layered you know way of looking at that character in this one standalone whereas the thing love about series is like you have opportunities to develop story lines for say secondary character that didn't have much of major role in an earlier book and you know you get to leave breadcrumbs maybe to set up theme explored in future book so the analogy think of is like when approach series versus standalones to writing to write when said to write it think of like okay like you have soccer game versus soccer tournament so in game your characters can like you know the character has goal to score goal to lean into their strengths to be team player to make difference you know out there on the pitch but it is significant and it's meaningful and but in tournament you you know that player she has to think about you know she discovers things about herself good or bad but it's like all on the line everything is in like you know sometimes throw the kitchen sink in you know and it's it's it's it's sort of like you know by the end of the tournament you know you're going to know how this gets this plot gets resolved you're going to know the answers to the character questions so that's that's sort of how kind of think of it approach i'm going to use that analogy would assume you want in something that's going to be series right because you want them to want to read the next one yes yes yeah well shifting gears just little bit here melissa can you tell us little bit about how you brought your work as marine biologist to your project and then some things that might get them excited about science and stem yeah so the first book of the series crocodile rescue is actually based on something that happened to me while was doing field excursion and so from that experience was born wild survival where really just wanted to make the natural world more accessible to readers through my books you know not everyone's going to be able to see mangroves or coral reefs so wanted to take them to one through my words my hope is that through my books readers become fascinated with wildlife and wild spaces and want to learn more about how they too can get involved with being wilderness advocate like adriana and her family and you know who knows maybe when in the future when people ask their kids or the future scientists what their inspiration was to get into the stem field they point to my book love that especially because lot of times know as an educator folks want to draw these harsh lines between stem and literacy or between science and math specifically and language arts and think that it's so important and necessary for us to see the ways that they come together so love that something that want to ask all of you and anybody can answer this one was there anything that you learned during the process of writing your book or series that you'll bring forward into future projects writing everything down would get really good ideas kind of anywhere so started getting the habit of just bringing sticky notes or like little notebook with me wherever or just bringing notes up on my phone and just writing every idea down and seeing what's stuck that's good for me to think about coaching young writers it's funny like at the start of every book you're like mystified by how you wrote manuscript before right like don't know if you feel the same but but i'd say that some now some of like i'm bringing to the next book sort of help with my prep like my prep work before start writing in working as team being co-author you you know that other people are waiting for you to do your part so you can pass it on to the next person and so feel like can benefit like if my prep work is tighter then can help my pacing yeah you know when lizette introduced us she said that thing was like yes when when she said some people look at chapter books and think they're just fluffy they're just so easy because i'm sure debbie and melissa i'm sure you've had that experience someone say comment like that and feel like when you're the shorter the book you know the more you have to be on it with your with your pacing and your plot and you have to really hone your message you know your theme your character everything like that whereas if you have you know 250 300 pages you can kind of fix something by writing writing through it in chapter book you can't do that you have to be really conscious of you know your your word count and your your chapter links and all of that because you've got emerging readers here you you can't turn them off or scare them away by by making it too difficult so feel like writing chapter books made me better writer of novels of other formats too because it just required me to get really tight really like sharp on on what was doing really focused that's really good advice for me to think about because so much of what tell students is show don't tell and of course you know what they're writing is different from writing fiction for young people but there are certain instances when you've really got to be like you said tight with it and just make sure that you're on the page you can show and not tell but do it in concise way that gets the person to where you want them to go love what you said about engaging you know early readers yeah and like what what shows like you can show something so profound with just like one perfect sentence right and or you could show with like paragraphs and paragraphs and paragraphs of like beautiful exquisite imagery right so that's that's so cool that you talk to your kids about that because we think about that we authors struggle with that they need to know and many of them do are aspiring young writers i'm all about bringing creative writing back into school because the focus on argumentative writing for the longest time was just you know people thought that was really necessary but love that my students will be able to see themselves in your books especially if you know their nature lover or they are somebody who is out there thinking that reading isn't for them think it's important for us to have all different kinds of chapter books and you know stories that will appeal to all different kinds not just your traditional overwhelmingly female student who likes to read you know think that it's great that we have series was just thinking about wings of fire don't know if you've heard of it but that one's really popular with the boys especially and the girls both of them like it so changing gears little bit what are some ways in which each of you have put yourselves into your stories and if readers could take away one thing from your book or series what would it be mean would say that the focus on lena's family as both challenge for her and something that gives her strength and support that's something that really brought in from from my own life lina they're they're remember when they sent the illustrations from barbara zappa zizuks as our illustrator and she had the portrait family portrait of baby lena and her mom and her dad and their mixed race family and was just like my gosh just loved seeing that on the page so much just really hit me very hard and so if if had readers take away one thing it would be that your your challenges the things that challenge you are also your source of strength so anytime you're struggling you're having difficult time that's going to be strength later on it's going to come out later on i'm going to write that down that is what need to remember for myself as grown woman right now surviving covid yes thank you yes yeah yeah melissa what about you mean adriana and faye are the kind of characters wish had when was growing up you know their afro-latinx role models who always try to do the right things and sometimes they stumble which is normal and i'm trying to show that to the people who are reading my books you know based adriana little bit off of myself and phase mixture of my two brothers their parents are also loosely based off of mine so haven't just put piece of myself into this book i've put all of me into it really that's beautiful if readers could take away one thing from your book what would it be that no place is so wondrous and mysterious than our own planet and that's why we need to protect it you know hope readers kind of walk away from my books being like wow want to learn more about this animal or this ecosystem think that for me will be dream come true that's beautiful hope for that too debbie the thoughts of well want to speak little bit for alyssa milano alyssa she was an activist since she was hope's age and so that's definitely is the reason why hope is such an active she cares so actively for her community and can relate to and the way put myself in to hope is you know not only for the bleeding heart is something could relate to but also could relate to sort of having passion or ambition to do something and then sort of you know taking on too much you know or taking and sort of fumbling with that or you know or volunteering to do things that you know may later say oops how am gonna get through this and and so can really can relate to sort of like that side of her especially and that's something that that you know make sure like get right and as far as the takeaway would say is to know lot of times we would say kids are the future but if we could shift that and say you know that kids can make difference today the kids can be the difference today you know nothing is nothing you can contribute it could be too small you know everything can have an impact that's so important we have to remember that you know it's it's bit of performance when we say that we're going to listen to young people and then we don't actually do it or provide avenues for them to be heard so that's that's so important that that you would contribute those thoughts okay see love hearing book people talk about books so think that that's perfect note to end things on lizette do you want to come back in do you have few words for everybody julia thank you so much for fostering this beautiful conversation and thank you thank you amazing woman for being open and honest and inspiring us with your with your creativity and knowledge if may want to share my favorite one of my favorite chapter book series which have revisited during this time frog and toad yeah love love love love love it so much mean talk about god the magic of page turn and now yes what's gonna happen and it always surprises me until this day it's so brilliant and it's such comfort it's one of my it's one of my best friends talking about books as best friends that carry his hands down so want our viewers today to go make new best friends with your work go purchase go support your indie bookseller your library go purchase hope diary of your ice princess and wild survival pre-order while survival coming out in february we're so excited about that thank you all for joining us today thank you julia thank you everyone and have great evening thank you guys this was amazing thank you so nice to meet all of you thank you so great you