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During quarantine, we’ve seen people connect and celebrate using song. Neighbors harmonize from their windows for front line workers. Friends croon from cars for drive-by birthdays. Families play “Name that Tune” via Zoom.
It’s no wonder; singing happens to release stress. As a former teacher, I often sang with students before tests or to reinforce tough topics. According to Julia Layton of How Stuff Works, singing lets out endorphins that help people feel good. When an individual sings in front of others, there is often an added benefit: improved confidence.
So what does all this singing have to do with books? More and more, picture book and other authors are writing Book Songs for students that accompany their printed work. Megan & Jorge Lacera worked with Annie Birdd Music for their super-fun Zombies Don’t Eat Veggies song, Dawn Prochovnic wrote lyrics for Where Does a Pirate Go Potty?, Kwame Alexander shared “Kwame & Randy’s” MixTape 52, and Josh Funk created catchy tunes for his Lady Pancake & Sir French Toast books. I’ve also written songs related to my picture book My Quiet Ship, and also my latest Albert Whitman book, Way Past Mad. I felt lucky to record these songs with Leo Gade and Elizabeth Christman, amazing student singers from the Philly Boys and Girls Choirs.
I began using the instrumentals of my Book Songs as intros for a “Stuck at Home” video series that I started during quarantine to inspire kids/classrooms to create and connect in simple ways. In Video #7, the 76ers Sixth Man, a Philadelphia super fan, shared his idea: write and sing a song for someone you love.
EUREKA! That video led to a fun collaboration: the 76ers Sixth Man and Way Past Books are now kicking off the first annual Book Song Challenge!
With the school year coming to an end, our students, teachers and librarians have not only read a lot of books, but have also been under a lot of stress (#understatement).
For the contest, students are challenged to create their own Book Song about their favorite book this year. Hopefully, kids can feel good and confident as we celebrate books AND the end of the year for our hard-working students, teachers, and librarians.
Three winners will receive a $76 book gift card for themselves and a $1000 book gift card that will be sent to their school or library. These gift cards will be fulfilled by awesome indie bookseller, Children’s Book World.
As an author who writes small books about big feelings, it’s hard not to consider how kids and school professionals are feeling right now. I’m looking forward to piloting this challenge this year with the 76ers Sixth Man and growing it together as a community where we can share books, book songs, and celebrate the most important thing we have: our future.
Hallee Adelman is the author of My Quiet Ship (2018), Way Past Mad (2020), Way Past Worried (coming Fall 2020), and two additional Way Past titles (2021). With a Ph.D. in Educational Leadership and Learning Technologies, Adelman has taught university and elementary students, having been nominated for the Disney Teacher of the Year Award on multiple occasions. She loves sharing writing tips with educators, children, teens and writers. She is married with two children and two dogs. Random facts: Adelman also produces documentary films. She keeps sour gummies in her desk drawer. She is currently engineering a giant leprechaun trap thanks to Tara Lazar’s most recent book!
by Kirsti Call
All three of my upcoming books originated from Storystorm ideas. MOOTILDA’S BAD MOOD, releasing September 1, was the result of a 2018 Storystorm brainstorming session with fellow author Corey Rosen Schwartz. Here a few of our notes:
- Mootilda: Overreacts to small disasters…refrain “what a cow-tastrophe”
- cowmooflage, mootif
- Moo la la
- Udder disaster into happy ever after
- Moognificent
Our first couple stanzas started out like this:
Mootilda woke up late one day.
“My nightmare’s over! Phew!
Coyote almost caught me and
I couldn’t even moo!”
She hugged her Meemaw cow who said,
“You’re in an awful state.
You’re drenched in sweat, your bed is wet.
It’s nearly hoof-past eight!”
Needless to say, none of these words made it to the final draft. But they all are part of the Mootilda’s evolution. I love how our illustrator made her come alive!
I wrote COW SAYS MEOW from my 2012 PiBoIdMo list. Back then my youngest was a toddler and still laughed at mixed up animal sounds jokes. COW SAYS MEOW is filled with onomatopoeia, wordplay, and mixed up animal sounds that made all five of my kids laugh out loud when they were little.
And COLD TURKEY is another collaborative effort with Corey Rosen Schwartz. We both put that title on our Storystorm lists independently. It was definitely meant to be!
I’m grateful for writing challenges like Storystorm—how else would I be known as the lady who writes mooooovelous cow books?
Ha! But out of the 30+ ideas you jot down for Storystorm, how do you select which ideas you think are most worthwhile to pursue as manuscripts?
I love pursuing ideas that hare generated by a great title. I’m working on “Love Stinks!”—I like the title so much that’s I’ve tried several iterations of this story. Right now it’s the unlikely friendship of a garbage truck and skunk. But usually I pursue ideas that have several layers and hooks—like a great title, stinkiness, and trucks for example. In the end I write the ideas that speak to me, ideas that spark more ideas, ideas that I hope will resonate with children.
How do you navigate through a story with a writing partner? Do you go back and forth? Do you write together? How do you make it work?
Writing with Corey is super fun. We meet on Google Docs and message each other during set meeting times. We also text randomly throughout the day when we come up with ideas and write asynchronously when we’re feeling inspired.Since Corey is a night owl and I’m always up early there are times that she’s writing in our doc at 2am and then I pick it up at 5am. There are so many times when we are writing together that we come up with the same idea or wordplay which makes it easy to write together. We also usually agree on what makes the story good or bad. Sometimes we talk over the phone; we laugh all the time when we’re writing together.
Do you have any fun behind-the-cow tales to tell about co-writing MOOTILDA?
Yes! In fact Corey is often in a bad moooood and I’m often in a good moooood. When we were writing the book we joked about it all the time. We even made mugs that both of us use daily.
Love those! But who gets what mug?
(Kidding!) Thanks, Kirsti, for your success story. I hope it brings encouragement to other picture book writers.
Kirsti is giving away a copy of MOOTILDA when it releases in September!
Enter one comment below to enter the giveaway.
A random winner will be selected in two weeks.
Good luck!
Kirsti Call is the author of several farm-related picture books. She lives in Andover, Massachusetts, where she makes moosic with her husband and five children. Kirsti is often in a good mooood!
She is the co-coordinator of ReFoReMo. She reads, reviews, revises and critiques every day as a 12×12 elf, a blogger for Writer’s Rumpus, and a member of critique groups. She’s judged the CYBILS award for fiction picture books since 2015. Kirsti’s picture book, MOOTILITA’S BAD MOOD (Little Bee) debuts fall 2020. COW SAYS MEOW (HMH) and COLD TURKEY (Little Brown) release in 2021. Kirsti is represented by Emma Sector at Prospect Agency. Visit her at kirsticall.com and follow her on Twitter @kirsticall.
Several months ago, during the STORYSTORM event, Annie Lynn was inspired to begin writing a song based on Megan and Jorge Lacera’s book, ZOMBIES DON’T EAT VEGGIES! Megan and Jorge loved this idea and knew that Annie was the perfect musician for this project. And so they began to collaborate….
Which brings us to TODAY.
The launch of the ZOMBIES DON’T EAT VEGGIES! theme song!
Before you listen to the song, I asked Annie Lynn and the Laceras to give us the story behind the music. (Oh, I feel like VH-1!)
Annie: So let’s start with the book the song is based on. Why did you write ZOMBIES DON’T EAT VEGGIES!? Is it based on anything or just a funny idea you had?
Megan: Our son is a huge inspiration…he loves “the scaries” and has always gravitated towards monsters, creatures, and spooky stories. He is also a very picky eater and simply wouldn’t touch vegetables for a long time. It wasn’t until we started to explore veggies in a more fun way…gardening, looking at seeds, talking about colors, types, smells and textures that he began to open up to giving veggies a go. We thought it would be fun to turn the whole thing on its head…what if the kid was begging the parent to try vegetables? What if he were a zombie, living in a zombie culture, who actually wasn’t allowed to eat carrots, turnips, and tomatoes? The idea grew from there.
Jorge: We also very much wanted to create a book that centered a multicultural family in a unique way. As someone who was born in Colombia, but grew a native Spanish speaker in Miami, I rarely saw picture books that appealed to me as a kid. There is more now, but we still had a hard time finding books for our son that featured families like ours.
Annie: What were your goals with this book?
Megan: Our goal was to create a book together that was “us.” A story that we loved, that tapped into our quirky, slightly dark sense of humor, that featured a family that loves each other wholeheartedly, even though each member is imperfect, sometimes stubborn, often making mistakes. Our hope was that by being true to ourselves, we could create a story that resonated with kids and families in a genuine way.
Jorge: And we wanted it to be published and be read all over the world!
Annie: I feel the same way about my songs!
Jorge: Yes! Hey Annie, it feels like you really love music and creating songs for kids. Can you share how/why it sets your heart on fire?
Annie: I took every skill and schooling I had and used them 14 yrs. ago, to open AnnieBirdd Music, LLC, my music publishing company, and now full service recording studio. Since then, I’ve relied on all of my diverse experiences… as a B.S.Ed. and classroom teacher, a litigation paralegal, studio recording singer, Mom, and musician…to create meaningful musical experiences. I am betting most of us who ended up in kidlit, did so organically, using all our past jobs and experiences.
I started writing kids songs (leaving a country-bluegrass radio career) when my son Alex was about 10. At first they were silly radio songs. Then my school ran out of money to license more songs the rest of the year, so I wrote a bunch based on professional development workshops we were sent to. Some were Social and Emotional Learning based, others Social and Environmental Justice, and we used them that year and they still do.
That was also when I realized what a great tool music is for learning educational content—and soon found that my self-discovery was supported by research and data. I put my songs on Youtube, and teachers internationally began asking me to use them in their classrooms. I love knowing my songs are being used in other countries. It makes the world seem a little smaller.
My heart is set on fire hearing kids singing my songs, in the studio and in schools, and I treasure the videos I’m sent of performances. That’s where I can see how they connect with our songs, and sometimes how they affect them. They get really mad and passionate singing STOP THAT!, our bullying-prevention song.
Megan: I love that. Connecting with kids is one of the most powerful things in the world. We treasure every message, photo, and video from kids.
Jorge: Annie, we love creating as a family…and we’re excited to learn that you also work with your family. How are your husband and son involved in your music creation? What is your process together like? How has is it gotten easier or harder?
Annie: The three of us, my husband/writing partner, Walt, son Alex, and I each seem to have a skill the other two don’t, and we are learning to defer to each other’s opinions and areas of expertise. We went from a lifetime of people and businesses licensing what we wrote for ourselves (low pressure, usually no deadline) to working on a deadline and custom crafting songs for books and kidlit occasions. That took some getting used to. Now it is simply exciting & we KNOW we can connect and deliver.
It also helps that we have a neutral party in our sound engineer/musician/co-producer/co-writer Chris Arms. When we’re all trying to come to an agreement, he usually has the right answer.
Megan: Speaking of process…you told us that STORYSTORM played such a huge role in the birth of the ZOMBIES DON’T EAT VEGGIES! theme song. How so?
Annie: STORYSTORM allowed me to create…with no judgement, as all the illustrators and authors kept reassuring us on Tara’s blog. I liked that it was ok to “suck.” That freedom got me wading into the dozens of kidlit books I have on display in the recording studio. I used both Fiction and Non-Fiction picture books. Some were educational, historical or scientific, others were just plain fun, with a great message and magical illustrations.
I ended up taking two commissions based on approximately 20 ideas generated from picture books. I chose to work for 30 days, but not sweat the 30 ideas part. STORYSTORM allowed me to create for free…kind of like a consultation. To be forthcoming though, I had spoken for many months with both you and Jorge, about a song for ZOMBIES DON’T EAT VEGGIES!, as well as Author/Podcast Host/Publisher Michele McAvoy her book COOKIE AND MILK with illustrator Jessica Gibson. We all felt it would happen, just the timing had to be right. These two books had a tractor beam pull on me.
Megan: It’s really cool how there are similarities between writing music and writing books…and how STORYSTORM inspires both. What was it about Zombies that “pulled” on you?
Annie: When you first messaged me the name of your book, your song’s chorus flew into my head. I probably wrote back right away saying something like “Woman…..that title screams to be a song.” It really does. And once I read the book, the song kept running through my head. Kidlit knows how I am by now! Everything’s a SONG!
Megan: The ZOMBIES DON’T EAT VEGGIES! theme song doesn’t sound like any of your other songs. How do you push yourself artistically in new directions?
Annie: For kidlit, I instinctively recognize that every new song will have to fit the time period & location the book is set in, as well as the cultural style. During STORYSTORM, I learned about comps and back matter, and recognized excitedly that what I am doing musically, you guys are doing in kidlit. So much of the kidlit advice offered by the community also pertains to songwriting, and I’m grateful to be learning. Thank you everyone, seriously.
Because ZOMBIES DON’T EAT VEGGIES! is a mix of English and Spanish, I knew the song should reflect a Latin music feel. I knew Jorge was born in Colombia, and that you both wanted a song that matched the tone and feeling of the book so I spent time immersed in the music of the country. I found a style I liked, and Megan confirmed that the musical artist (Carlos Vives) I picked out as a “comp” was one of their favorites. From there, I studied what he did, what instruments were used and how and when. I sent Jorge a drum track after he requested to try rapping in Spanish, and he nailed it, upping the appeal of the song.
I’m now working on a reggae tune, another stretch out of my comfort zone. I’m loving the education. The puppets are grooving to it too!
Megan and Jorge, I’m curious…from your point of view as book creators, how do you think a song might be useful?
Megan: Having worked in entertainment for years, we know the power of a song to make a story, concept, or idea stick with you. Look at Disney…think about how many kids (and adults) can belt out LET IT GO! at the drop of hat and there you have it…songs stick.
Jorge: To get really specific, here are some ways we’ve all talked about how a ZOMBIES DON’T EAT VEGGIES! theme song can be used:
- In classrooms, with lesson plans to help reinforce learning and engage students in new ways.
- For our author visits, at schools, conferences, festivals
- During Library story times and events
- To add movement, dance to activities with kids (so many kids learn/retain more when they’re able to move)
- At home; families can read together then sing and dance together
- Children’s radio and podcasts
Annie: Hey, did you think you’d be writing the lyrics? (I did🤣!)
Megan: Well, you are the musical maven, so we wanted to follow your lead. And we knew you had the chorus already! But when you suggested that I write the lyrics, I was excited. I’ve written lyrics for other projects—start-ups, brands, marketing videos—but it was a whole new level of fun (and pressure!) to work on a song for my own book.
Jorge: I love the lyrics and the way Annie sings them—everything feels so seamless. We can’t stop singing it at our house.
Annie: Thank you, that makes my heart full of joy. We set out to create an earworm…a song that runs through your mind repeatedly, and usually, enjoyably.
So without further ado, here is the world premiere of the ZOMBIES DON’T EAT VEGGIES! theme song! It is definitely a fun earworm! Click the book cover and be transported to SoundCloud!
For blog readers, Megan and Jorge Lacera have a signed copy of the book, and Annie Lynn will give away the MP3 files of her album No Time for Hate…and Other Songs for Schools (for personal use only).
Leave one comment below to enter and two winners will be randomly selected, one for each prize!
Good luck!
Annie Lynn is President and Chief Composer at AnnieBirdd Music, LLC. Visit her at AnnieLynn.net and follow her on Twitter at @AnnieLynn215. Listen to more her toe-tappy, kidlit-happy music at SoundCloud/Annie-Lynn-6!
The dynamic husband-wife creative team of Megan & Jorge Lacera are online at studiolacera.com and Twitter @MeganLacera & @StudioLacera. Seven-year old Kai Lacera serves as Studio Lacera’s Chief of Research and Story Development.
Writing for Kids (While Raising Them) 