Author Panel: Melissa Iwai

Melissa Iwai is an award-winning author/illustrator of picture books, including Soup Day, Pizza Day, Dumplings for Lili, which was a Crystal Kite Award winner and Bank Street Best Book. Her I Can Read Series, Gigi and Ojiji, was a Junior Library Guild Gold Standard selection, and Gigi and Ojiji was a Theodor Geisel Honor recipient in 2023. When she is not creating, she can be found cooking and doing crossword puzzles with her husband, author Denis Markell, in Brooklyn.

The focus of this panel will be on authentic voices as well as early-reader series, so Melissa will sharing about her GIGI AND OJIJI series. 

Melissa echoes the panelists feeling that these books help readers have an edge to advance and feel pride when they're learning how to read, feeling they can do it. In terms of illustration, the art is helping kid interpret. Like any book, the illustrations compliment the text, but particularly with early reader books you don't want any ambiguity, or for anything to complicate it. 

In GIGI OJIJI Melissa wanted to show her main character's emotions so the facial expressions and body language were key. 

How did Melissa come to the early-reader format? It started during the pandemic. Melissa's agent let her know that a particular editor was looking for early readers featuring diverse characters. She asked Melissa if she had any ideas, and she did. It took meetings, writing a pilot books, and much more before she actually got the contract. 

Melissa shares how important it for kids to see themselves in books, and in her book she was also able to include some Japanese words. For the kids who have that background, they see themselves in those pages, but for those kids who don't, they get to learn a bit about the language and background. 

Melissa found researching other early-readers very valuable, and she looked at a wide range of levels. There are a lot of constraints in the early reader (both in text and illustration). She found those constraints helped to guide her and help her execute her vision. The guidelines shouldn't constrict you, rather guide you. Reading many many books gives you and overall sense of the genre. 

Authors Panel: Emma Otheguy

Emma Otheguy is an award-winning author of several books for children, including the I Can Read series Reina Ramos, the picture books A Sled for Gabo and Martina Has Too Many Tías, the bilingual picture book Martí’s Song for Freedom, and the middle-grade novels Sofía Acosta Makes a Scene and Silver Meadows Summer. She is the author of the Carmen Sandiego novel Secrets of the Silver Lion and co-author, with Adam Gidwitz, of The Unicorn Rescue Society: The Madre de Aguas of Cuba.

Screenshot of Emma Otheguy presenting in the panel,
with a slide showing four covers of her Reina Ramos early readers.

As part of the Authentic Voices in Early Readers Authors Panel, Emma Otheguy introduces her Early Readers series, Reina Ramos in this way: 

"Reina is a child who loves to dance, and is full of energy. She wants to be good - she loves her mom and her abuela - but whose headlong energy gets her in trouble... But [it's] always resolved with a lot of heart!

Emma shares that good early readers stack the deck in favor of the child who is starting to read on their own, and like Frog and Toad, "they sacrifice nothing in terms of literary product." 

Great takeaway insight: 

"A great early reader is one where on every single page of the book you can see the main character's emotions changing based on the action of the story." 

Emma explains that you need to link narrative (the action plot) with the character's internal emotional experience.

The short version of Emma's journey to getting the Reina Ramos series published: Emma wrote a proposal and manuscript, but the timing wasn't right. But a year later, when an editor was looking for an early reader series and asked Emma's agent if they had someone who could do that, the timing was right, and Emma had already put in the hard work—and so got the opportunity!

One of the reasons Emma was so passionate to write an early reader with a Latina character was having Spanish right there along with the English.

"Multi-lingualism is not inherently stranger or other or harder... it's something that is so normal, and so a part of childhood everywhere, that it should be in this part of literature for children that is accessible, that is widely available." 

Reinforcing that, Emma shares that 16% of kids in the United States speak Spanish at home, and one-quarter of kids in the US today are Latino. 

There's much more conversation, with great tips(!), stories about breaking into the business, insights, and an engaging Q&A. 

An inspiring and helpful panel!

Authors Panel: Authentic Voices In Early Readers with Valerie Bolling

Valerie Bolling is passionate about creating stories in which all children can see themselves and feel seen and heard, valued and validated. She is the author of six picture books -- LET’S DANCE! (SCBWI Crystal Kite Award winner), TOGETHER WE RIDE, TOGETHER WE SWIM (2023 Kirkus Prize Finalist), RIDE, ROLL, RUN: TIME FOR FUN!, BING, BOP, BAM: TIME TO JAM!, and I SEE COLOR (Junior Library Guild Gold Standard Selection) -- as well as a Scholastic Acorn early reader series, RAINBOW DAYS.

A graduate of Tufts University and Teachers College, Columbia University, Valerie was an educator for 30 years and is active in the kidlit community, teaching picture book classes (independently and for the Highlights Foundation), presenting at conferences, and participating in book festivals.

You can find out more about Valerie at valeriebolling.com/index.html. Valerie is represented by James McGowan. Here's the story about how Valerie and her agent found each other.

Valerie wrote her early reader Rainbow Days  series for Scholastic Acorn because she wanted to create inclusive stories for children. The series features a girl named Zoya and her dog, Coco, who love to make art.

After successfully publishing picture books like Let's Dance and because of her engagement with the kidlit community, Valerie became interested in Scholastic's call for books featuring BIPOC characters. Kate Corella, editorial director at Scholastic, recognized Valerie's talent and potential, and encouraged her to read as many early readers as she could. 

Valerie said that Kelly Starling Lyons was an early mentor, providing invaluable guidance and support. 

It's exciting to be providing books who are just becoming independent readers, says Valerie. She loves working on books that helps children see themselves.

Valerie's tips on writing early readers:

You need to read many books in the genre.

You need an engaging story.

Create a character that you really love and that you can live with. What makes your character special? For example in Valerie's Rainbow Days series, Zoya is a character associated with glitter. When she figures something out, she always says, "oh, oh, I know!" This makes it more fun for the creator and the reader.

Early reader series is not necessarily the genre you should lead with when you're querying, says Valerie.

Bonus info:

In terms of scheduling, all three of the books in Rainbow Days came out within a year. 

Valerie says in her experience, picture books pay more. She points out that this might differ, depending on the context (individual author, illustrator, publisher). She also said that for her early reader series, she received payment after the third/final book came out.