Tag: picture books

Hello! My nickname is …

Barbara Gruener

Today I’m grateful for my daughter, Kaitlyn, who helped me create this!

Just print it out on an Avery 5395 adhesive label for a fun #B2S activity. For almost a year already, I have been asking students to share their nicknames (if they have one) or a name they wish they could be called, and it has been fascinating to hear the endearing names, their backstories, how they feel about the names, and who gets to call them by that name. It has also led into beautiful conversations about our given names; this beautiful young lady, who goes by Em, was given the name Emaline, a combination of two of her grandmother’s names. Isn’t that so special?

I’ve not met Lisa in person yet, so I’m not sure if she’s got a nickname. Since she’s a PE teacher, my guess is that many people know her by the name Coach, but I do plan to ask her when we finally meet in real life.

As always, we need to keep in mind that nicknames could be a sensitive subject for some, especially if they share an unwanted (or hurtful nickname), so setting the scene with compassion and love will be super important to make it a safe space for this discussion. Recently I found out that my cousin’s son Owen has a nickname – O – that he doesn’t like and he asks that his family not call him that. But it’s so cute, right? But I get it. Our son Joshua did not like one of his nicknames and he let us know that that was NOT his name!

For fun, I’ve been working on this little ditty, to seal the deal after reading the book aloud and allowing for partner time sharing our nicknames.

Keep on dancing, dear reader.

Now This Brings Tears

Barbara Gruener

I was so happy to see the Amazon truck carrying this precious cargo.

My dad’s copy of Birdie & Mipps.

His reaction to a pillow hug made from his son’s shirt holding our book was priceless.

First, he laughed.

Then, he caught his breath.

“Now this brings tears,” he admitted freely as he turned the page and saw the picture of his baby boy on the bike in the back of our book. Tears. So. Many. Tears. Tears of grief. Tears of pride. Tears of loss. Tears of gratitude. Tears of joy. Tears of what was. Tears of what isn’t anymore. Tears of missing. So. Many. Tears. Of. Missing.

And yet, we move forward, one breath, one step, one day at a time. For there are babies to be baptized, like Leah, the newest member of our family.

Do we wish Mipps could have been here for this four-generation celebration? No question. But we definitely felt his presence as we continue to grieve with the hope of one day seeing him again. Until then, we work with intention to keep his legacy of love alive by sharing his story and continuing his ministry of compassionate connections, gratitude and generosity.

Thank you, dear reader, for your interest in our book and its backstory. Have you read Birdie & Mipps yet? What was your favorite part?

Loving Feedback For Birdie & Mipps

Barbara Gruener

Today I’m grateful for the readers who took the time to share their reflections at BN.com.

Sharing a story so close to my heart can be daunting and a little nerve-wracking, so these kind words are helping still my soul.

The books are making their mark around our home state just like my Pied Piper brother did. Here, the books are proudly displayed in the Mark W. Natzke lounge at his workplace. They loved him and they miss him so much.

Mipps’ friend Bridget from the Ronald McDonald House Charities of Eastern WI worked with her team to place a copy in each of the family rooms at their house that bear his name. He served on that Board of Directors for 9 years and absolutely LOVED that place as he championed their cause.

It has been a bittersweet few weeks as we put this story about how Mipps got his nickname out into the world, but my heart is happy that his legacy of connection, generosity and love continues. That’s what this beautiful bird symbolizes and that’s why I’m loving the feedback that’s feeding my emotional reserve.

The softcover copy is available at Amazon now.

Front Page News

Barbara Gruener

Yesterday was a special birthday; it would have marked my late brother Mipps turning 56, but it also served as the release of our tribute book, Birdie & Mipps.

I’m so grateful that Road To Awesome would choose to publish our passion project.

I’m also so thankful that the Reporter News deemed our story front page newsworthy!

I’ve been told repeatedly that it’s important to make grief our friend, wear it like a shawl even, so that’s what I tried to do once I came out of that initial fog, embrace grief and give my pain purpose.

I hope you’ll like our story, dear reader; do leave your feedback for our other friends here.

Young Authors’ Day

Barbara Gruener

I had the most incredible time on Friday celebrating the 20th-annual Young Authors’ Day at Willow River Elementary in Hudson, WI; what a treat to be invited to be their special guest and get to share our story. I’m so grateful to Sarah and her beautiful school family for the warm welcome and loving kindness throughout the day.

To walk into the library and see our book among these special literary picks?

PRICELESS!

Sometimes it just doesn’t seem real, that I get to travel around helping young writers learn about the publishing process from seedling idea to hardback book. It gives me great joy to answer their questions and sign words of encouragement in my book for them. My favorite new phrase? Sometimes empathy is quiet.

So what’s next? As another school year winds down and we slide into summer, our release of Birdie & Mipps is just around the corner, set for next week, May 23rd, 2024. This Thursday, I’ll be at our Friendswood Library to talk with local young authors about publishing, then we’ll do a “Hello-my-nickname-is” activity before our fabulous librarian Christina and I read the book aloud. I get to play the older sister Birdie, while she tackles the role of a very curious Mipps.

Didn’t she do an incredible job on the invitation?

Oh, and before I head out, a huge shoutout to Julie Garnett for showcasing Mr. Quigley’s Keys on her Musical Storytime Plus. We are super grateful to be a part of her stellar storytelling family.

Do let me know if you’d like to schedule an author visit for your budding writers.

Inspiring School Visits

Barbara Gruener

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.

It’s EmpaKEY

Barbara Gruener

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.

Huge holiday hugs and heaps of hygge, Barbara

Making People Happy

Barbara Gruener

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.

Say “KEYS!”

Barbara Gruener

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.

Happy November, dear reader.

Something So Magical

Barbara Gruener

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.