Today I’m excited that we are only a month away from the release of Birdie & Mipps. I am so grateful for this tribute to my special sibling relationship with my brother, Mark, who mostly went by the name Mipps. Do you have a nickname? And who gets to call you by that name?
I had the blessing of reading the draft aloud earlier this semester and recently received these beautiful reflections from a few of my fourth-grade friends in Wisconsin. These notes are such a treasure; enJOY the gallery walk!
I had read Mr. Quigley’s Keys to them via Zoom on World Kindness Day in November, so I brought them each a key necklace. Many of their notes referenced that KEYpsake.
Since there will be a cardinal on every page, one of them drew this. Isn’t that AmAzInG? Do you know what the cardinal symbolizes?
I also used Winthrup, my bird puppet, to introduce the book, which was a huge hit.
It filled my bucket to hang out with them for a bit.
Aren’t these letters just so special?
I’m currently booking author visits, keynotes, and professional development growth sessions for the upcoming school year; do reach out if I can support and serve in some capacity in your character building.
Happy February; today I’m excited about and grateful for my visit to Howard Elementary in WI last week, to follow-up a virtual visit I’d had with these fourth-grade empathy heroes back on Kindness Day in November.
Mrs. VandeHei invited me back for an in-person visit when I got home, so on the Friday of this year’s Great Kindness Challenge, off I went, to meet them in person. Once there, I found a hand-colored sign Welcome Mrs. Gruener hanging on the shelves in their library; this S donned the keys to connection from Mr. Quigley’s Keys!
I introduced the three classes to my puppet Winthrop as we talked about what empathy is; how can they predict how Winthrop is feeling even though they don’t speak bird? Their answers were intuitive and inspiring.
Then, we looked at what it means to switch places with another, step into their story, and walk in their shoes for a spell. We practiced the Empathy Switch on our hands and paired it with this poem: E-M-P-A-T-H-Y; put yourself in my shoes and I think you will find; E-M-P-A-T-H-Y, you’re a superhero of the empathy KIND, adding the hand-jive movements to jazz it up.
Since I’d already read Mr. Quigley’s Keys to them, this visit lent itself to a debut of my new book, Birdie and Mipps! My sister and I acted it out; my Dad played the cameo role of the narrator.
After we read it aloud, one friend had a question that I wasn’t quite sure how to answer: Does our little brother, Mipps, know that I wrote a book about him? Sigh.
We had empaKEY necklaces for all of them, to remind them that they have the power to unlock doors with their kindness, that they surely hold the key to someone’s heart, that they are KEY to their school’s success. Before I laid my head on the pillow that night, this beautiful gift from one of my new fourth-grade friends seered itself on my heart.
What fun to make it a family affair, to get to share my story with Debra and Dad in tow. I’m so grateful for my continued partnership with this gifted teacher and her fourth-grade team!
Before I headed to WI, I led a workshop in TX; click {here] if you want to see those slides.
Now that I’m back in TX, I’m counting the days until I become a Grammy. Check back here for that exciting announcement in just a few weeks.
This morning as I packed for my final visit of 2023, a funny thought occurred to me: What if I changed the word empathy to empaKEY?
And what an incredible day it was. I got to visit with about 700 students at North Pointe Elementary, read them my book and share the quiet echo of Mr. Quigley’s Keys with them. Their librarian, Becky, was an incredible hostess; I’d never have known it was her first author visit in that position had she not told me. Look at the adorable flyer she made.
I even got to sign a couple dozen books and it’s always a gift to run into young people I’ve known since their childhood who are now rockin’ it as passionate educators!
They had vintage keys on a string for all of the kids to take with them, which were a huge hit. It’s so fun for me to see them wearing them around school and hearing them say, “I still have my key!”
I savored every second of blasting off with these Rockets; it was a bit like coming back home since I had the pleasure of being their National Schools of Character site visitor years ago. This NSOC is an incredible place to be and I could feel the fruits of their HEART work as I roamed the halls and shared my story with their superhero students.
I pray this finds you thriving as we head into the most wonderful time of the year. If you are looking for an author visit in 2024, I am scheduling those now. I’m already booked for a return visit to my home state of Wisconsin and I’m so SO eager and blessed.
It’s World Kindness Week and I have been having a blast toggling between substitute teaching and author visits at some local Career Fairs. Lots of time with kids has left my bucket overflowing!
I was excited to be able to showcase the Spanish version of Keys; these students were looking at all of our replica keys and trying to find a match to the keys on our cover.
Everywhere I go, these tiny treasures continue to be the biggest hit. Yesterday, a conversation with a third-grade boy went like this: Do these keys open anything? he asked curiously. Hearts, I reply without skipping a beat. Oh yeah, he nodded knowingly, you did say it was a kindness key.
This young lady wanted to know more about the missing key. You see, she’d read our story with her school counselor and they discussed the key behind Mr. Quigley’s knee in the mural. I explained that it’s up to every reader to decide which trait was on that key, so she told me she thought either heart or respect. I affirmed her choices and told her that I think it might have been compassion or patience and she agreed that those would work, too.
One student wanted to know if I liked my job, so I said yes before turning the tables on him by asking him what he thought the best part of my job was. His answer? Making. People. Happy.
Spot on, little buddy, spot on. Oh, how I love to make people happy. But not just the temporary kind of happiness that might come from eating an ice cream cone. No, that’s lovely and all, but I want to help people feel JOY (one of our keys to connection!) deep down in their souls, to their very core. I do that by lighting up for people, by delighting in their presence, and by getting curious about who they are, what they want or need, what they dream about, what they’re going through. What their sorrows and successes are. Where they’ve been and where they’re going. Not in a fake, glossy sort of way, but wholeheartedly with them, unwrapping the present together. Good or bad, comfortable or uncomfortable. It’s my calling and it’s a gift of epic abundance. It’s the legacy I plan to leave in the people whose paths I’m blessed to cross.
So as we close in on Thanks {and} Giving 2023, my question is this: How do YOU share your joy in such a way that it makes people happy?
Tell us in the comments or drop me a line; I always loving hearing from my readers.
Today I’m grateful for the many recent opportunities I’ve had to share that empathy, compassion and kindness are KEY; my most recent visit found me coming home to Westwood Elementary, where I was a school counselor for 14 years. Book? Check. Ukulele? Yep! Puppet? Got him. Antique key ring and large kindness key? Ready to unlock the magic.
So I got to lead ten 30-minute sessions and I left there exhausted but exhilarated.
What fun to teach them about empathy, sing with them, read to them and laugh with them as we discovered all about Mr. Quigley and the story of his keys to connection, then leave them with a kindness key and a challenge for them to unlock hearts, their imaginations, the future.
When I posted online that I was putting yarn onto the kindness keys for our preK kiddos, the mom of one of the 5th graders that I subbed for reached out with the kindest offer; she asked if she and her family could sponsor the keys for my next few growth sessions. I sent her a link sharing what I typically purchase and voila, by Friday morning, sweet Cecily was delivering 1K keys for my upcoming visits in this beautiful blue Mustang bag. Be still my beating heart.
Isn’t that the most thoughtful thing? Turns out that we go way back, because I was her brother’s school counselor 8 years ago when her family first came to town. You just never know when a kindness shared will boomerang its way back to you.
Do a kind act; it’ll boomerang back! Give kind, get kind, just like that.
I also got to visit this sweet class virtually in Clifton, TX recently; they had some amazing questions for me as they were digging into author’s purpose, illustrator’s purpose, literary elements, editing and more. I reminded them that an author’s work might have a due date, but it’s actually never done because we can always make it better and I encouraged them to hoard words like a coin collector treasures his/her coins, something my 8th grade teacher taught me that I’ve never forgotten.
Finally, I got to spend some time encouraging and loving on some mentors in a neighboring town, super fun for me because I reconnected with Keri, the teacher whom I actually started my Character Counts! journey with back in the year 2000.
I will always cherish the connection we had and the opportunities that came our way to present the six pillars of charACTer together. She is a spark plug of compassion, joy and hope.
I’ll leave you with this footprint: The writing’s on the wall in the Westwood cafeteria in the shape of a shoe; this visual display just begged me to teach the learners this little ditty about empathy. Try it with a snap, pat, clap rhythm or use the motions to the hand-jive song. Invite them to jazz it up or rock it out to seal the deal on just how important it is that we make walking in someone else’s shoes a daily ritual until it becomes a life-long habit.
What a delightful trip home, to take in some Fall foliage and spend some quality time with family. While there, I was blessed by three opportunities to share my book and make some new friends. The first visit was to these two incredible young learners who are homeschooled.
Their favorite takeaways were the antique key necklaces we made, searching for the camouflaged keys throughout the book, and finding someone in Ms. Pittman’s class that looks like them.
They stole my heart as I got to sign, sing, and search with them. In the end, my second-grade friend even made a treasure map for me, complete with a key, of course, to find a special treasure chest hidden in his garage. Don’t you love extension activities?
Then it was off to Racine, WI, for a vist at both schools where my incredibly thoughtful friend Trish is the amazing school counselor.
Our friend Julia joined us and shared this beautiful reflection later that afternoon.
Look at how heartwarming this is, the Principal at Red Apple Elementary handing out keys to his kids. I love how he let them decide which key fit them.
I feel so blessed to have visited these two beautiful school families and shared our story. It happened to be World Smile Day, so I also got to challenge a few friends to a smile off. It was a fun way for a student to win a signed copy of our book for one of their teachers. Then it was time to head to the family farm, where I captured Autumn in all of its splendor.
We picked up my mom so she could go along on the third author visit.
She really appreciated how beautiful it was outside. The trees were so vibrant and the weather was absolutely perfect for this visit to a parochial grade school like the one I attended during my formative years.
It was extra-special because my invitation came from a 5th-grade student, a nephew of my brother on his wife’s side.
What joy to watch young leaders take the initiative and make something so magical happen.
Happy October, dear reader; I pray many KEY cotton-candy sunsets, like this one that I captured over our family farm, on the horizon for you as we head toward the most wonderful time of the year.
Today I’m grateful because I got to be a guest teacher on day 3 of school so that my friend Melissa could take her son Jacob off to college without a worry. She asked what read-aloud I’d like to use during Morning Meeting time and I pitched this idea: I would read my book and bring a key for each of her students, to remind them that they hold the key to compassion and kindness, which will unlock doors for them.
But here’s the twist: I decided not to tell them that I was the author. Instead, I shared that if they went to Bales Intermediate last year, then they know the illustrator because she was their art teacher. And, if they were at Windsong, then they know the mom of the illustrator because she was their art teacher. They were SO distracted by that connection that they totally missed who the author was.
One boy did ask how did I read the book without looking at the words? I told him that I’ve read it so much that I totally have it memorized. Ok, maybe he was on to me.
Anyway, if I could bottle the gasp of excitement that I heard when they figured out that Mr. Quigley was a real guy and that I actually knew it … and then that I actually wrote the story? Sigh. Be still my beating heart.
They all got a KEYpsake to either put in their pockets or on a string, to remember our time together.
And then, this beautiful feedback on Facebook.
Am I not just the luckiest author and guest teacher ever? Happy new {school} year!
Our picture book, Mr. Quigley’s Keys, turned two on June 1st, so my beautiful mother-in-law took her copy to her social sorority for a read-aloud with her sisters.
Doesn’t it look incredible in her hands? At 88, Ruby has suffered a lot of losses, both of her sisters, many of her friends, even a son, and yet she’s still out and about, serving others and mobilizing compassion. When she told me of her plans to share our story at their monthly meeting, I offered to send along an antique key for each of them, to remind them that they hold the key to empathy, compassion and kindness, and to encourage them to KEYp on telling their stories, because they have much to teach us about connections, life and love.
I’ve been thinking a lot about LOVE lately, about what it means not only to love, but to BE love. I came up with this acrostic for the #leadlap Twitter chat I led this past Saturday:
If you put LOVE into an acrostic, which four words would you choose?
And how do you make sure to love yourself well enough that you have something left to give to others? What does that look like? Sound like? Feel like?
I always have more questions than answers when I get to thinking, but I think if I’ve written a book that addresses love, then I’d best keep reflecting on what love means and how it becomes us.
Here are the other questions, in case you want to ponder with me.
So while I work on BEing LOVE, happy summertime, dear reader.
Just as we are about to celebrate our two-year book birthday, I’m excited and grateful that our story was selected for the Barnes & Noble Classwork #SEL spotlight.
What an honor to hear it called “a book worthy of a spot in any classroom library.”
Today I woke up with a happy heart because of a Family Literacy Night I got to participate in last night. Here’s how our evening began, with a student-drawn sign reserving a parking spot outside of the Family Center, where we’d enjoy dinner with the volunteers before the inaugural event started. It totally made the Friday afternoon traffic jam we had endured to get across town worth it; SO thoughtful.
After a yummy dinner, I set up my author table, then headed into the Sanctuary, where I got a a few minutes with the students and their families for a pep talk, Listen Up: Character Speaks!. It focused on using our five senses to listen to, connect with, show empathy for, and love people. ALL people. I found a brave first-grade friend to join me in front and offered her a gift bag, asking her before opening it to describe how it looks, what it sounds like, how the flowers on the bag might smell, how the package feels. Then I asked if she wanted to open it or leave it wrapped, and how she’d feel if it were empty. After she answered my questions to pique the curiosity of the crowd, she opened the bag to find a key, which she told us would be useful for opening doors.
I reminded her that we all hold the key to kindness, and that her empathy and compassion will always unlock doors. She helped me teach the Empathy Switch before she sat back down with her dad.
We then talked about how every day is a gift and that each day we can choose to open it or leave it wrapped up. And how every choice we makes gives us another opportunity to grow physically, emotionally and spiritually so that we’re our healthiest selves to serve others, head, heart, and hands.
After a first-grade class recited three adorable poems for Poetry Month, two more authors spoke and my friend Margaret, who organized the entire event, shared with participants how they can get a library card to keep sharpening their reading skills even over the summertime months, it was time to return to and reconnect in the Commons.
We were accompanied there by our 8th-grade Ambassadors for snacks and an expo-type setting with tables that the families could swing by, learn more, and maybe even get a memento, like these antique keys. I loved sitting next to Ianna and learning all about about her as I answered participants’ questions about being an author and encouraged the kids to keep on writing.
My favorite moment was probably with Ella, whose smile was like sunshine for my soul. I asked her how it was that we connected in that big crowd and she said it was because she loved and agreed with what I was saying about kindness and keys and that even though she didn’t totally understand everything I was saying, she thought that it was really special and nice. She came by my table three times, each time with a smile bigger than before, the last time for a huge hug.
I even got to sign a Spanish version of our book for a student from Mexico, the cherry to top off this sweet event. If a Family Night like this is in your plans for the next school year, please keep me in mind; I’d love to be a part of it.
Barbara Gruener 