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Writing a Second-Grader Picture Book

Lisa Pelissier • Nov 16, 2023

Help me welcome author and blogger Lisa Pelissier as she shares about her two second-grader picture books.


First, let me tell you about my two books, then I'll share why I wrote them.


About The Monsters at my School:

Things are going pretty well for second-grader Grayson. He thinks he's aced his math test. It's pizza day at school. What could go wrong?

A glance out the window answers that question.

Eyes.
Googly eyes.
Monster eyes.


About Monstors in Trouble:

Join Grayson, Kinsley, and their friends in their second adventure with Monsters!

Grayson is still uneasy about stealing to help the monsters, but he's confident that he's doing the right thing. When the school cracks down on the thefts, Grayson and the second graders are worried. How will they help the monsters if they can't get them what they need?


 

About Lisa:

Lisa Pelissier lives in Oregon where she is a homeschool mother of four and self-published author of five middle-grade fiction novels, as well as two early-readers' chapter books and a YA fantasy novel. Lisa owns SneakerBlossom Books, offering Christian, classical homeschool study guides and curriculum. She also works as a freelance copyeditor, copywriter, and virtual assistant. She blogs at EleventhWillow.com, a site she and two friends started for Christians parenting the mentally ill. In her spare time Lisa enjoys making art, playing the piano, and fretting about things over which she has no control.


Connect online:

Website: https://www.sneakerblossom.com/ 
Email: sneakerblossom (at) yahoo.com
Blog: https://www.eleventhwillow.com/ 
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/lisa.pelissier.author 
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lisaedkela/ 
Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.com/edkela/ 
Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/stores/Lisa-Pelissier/author/B08794GCR1

Buy Links

https://www.amazon.com/Monsters-at-my-School/dp/B0C51XDJ5D  

https://www.amazon.com/Monsters-Trouble-School-Book-ebook/dp/B0CJYKC5TN/


About writing a second-grade chapter book

I never intended to write a second-grade chapter book. I never intended to teach second grade. Life is like that. Much of what comes is a surprise, and sometimes, as in this instance, a pleasant one. Last school year, I accepted a long-term sub position as a second-grade teacher in the local Christian school. I was terrified. I gravitated toward high schoolers in my subbing preferences. What was I going to do with a bunch of seven-year-olds? What did I have to offer them? Was I going to lose my mind?


I soon found that I love second-graders. They’re old enough to think deep thoughts, but young enough to eagerly soak up everything you tell them. I noticed that their class hadn’t been doing much art. They’d done craft projects, but not art. As a quick project in one of the first weeks I taught, I had them draw monster faces. The kids went nuts. If it had been a meme, it would have been viral. They made monster after monster after monster after monster. (Click here if you want to see our bulletin board.) I decided I would write a story for them—a story about monsters.


With their input as a guide, I began writing my monster story. It takes place at their school and in their classroom, with students that are a conglomeration of all of the kids in my class. I would have put them all into the story individually, but as I explained to them, a good book can’t have nineteen main characters. They had to accept that little bits of each of them found their way into the eight second-graders who form the monsters team.


By the time I was halfway done writing the story, I realized that it could become a book. I decided to publish the book as quickly as I could so that I could have a copy for each student on the last day of school. That only gave me six weeks to make a book from start to finish. Keeping it a secret from the class, I got their parents to sign permission slips so their own artwork could appear on the back cover. When that last day of school arrived, the kids were ecstatic to find their very own monster story was a real book—and that their art was right there for anyone in the world to purchase.


The Monsters at my School now has a brand-new super-exciting front cover. Of course, the kids’ art still graces the back cover. The second book, Monsters in Trouble, came out November 7.  In the first book, Grayson, Kinsley, and their friends have to figure out why there are monsters at their school. What do they want? In the second book, they know what the monsters need, but they can no longer get it. How can they help the good monsters defeat the bad monsters? An ingenious solution, one no one ever expected, helps Grayson and Kinsley save the day.

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