Homeschooling with Tim & Bailey #3: A Message to Our New Favorite Graphic Novel Author, Svetlana Chmakova
Our third entry in my homeschooling series has to do with both reading and gratitude. A few days ago my daughter and I sent the following message to an author we've recently discovered.
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Here's a deeply felt thank-you — and a story about the impact of your wonderful pictures and stories. Last night you touched the heart and mind of a 10-year-old girl who has struggled to find books she'd stay up late to finish. Just like her father and her birth mother before her.
My 10-year-old daughter Bailey was adopted from a young woman named Samantha, who Bailey now knows and loves as her friend and her birth mother. Samantha stayed with us last summer, and showed my daughter the coolness of thrifting, knitting, purple hair, and much more.
Samantha tells us that she chose Bailey's mother and me as parents partly because we didn’t seem to take life too seriously, but also because one of us, like her, had challenges with dyslexia. With some careful thinking but no crystal ball, Samantha lovingly thought: What better family to raise this child than someone who might have the life experience and insights to help Bailey cope better, if it turned out the DNA bingo card handed her similar challenges with reading? Spoiler: It did.
Bailey is a goofy and happy but dyslexic fourth grader. Who, for the first time last night, begged and pleaded to be allowed to stay up far past her bedtime — a time that shall never be revealed to her mother — just so that she could finish her second book by our new favorite graphic novel author, Svetlana Chmakova. We team-read “Brave.” And then last night it was all about “Crush.” And tomorrow she plans to tear through “Awkward.” We realize these books are being read out of order, but for dorks like us that's par for the course.
Seeing Bailey so gripped and focused made me recall the first book that did the same for me — the book that somehow steadied my eyes and helped me find the will to focus and finish. I’m sure Samantha recalls something much the same. But we write now to let you know you have a new fan and a new passionate reader. First light!
While much of our nation’s been asked to "shelter in place" — including us — our fourth-grader, via your books, has already attended middle school, met new friends and found new crushes, and shared in their stories. She now wonders what her own story will be like.
She awakes tomorrow with a new spark and less fear about middle school and reading. I can’t wait to hear her thoughts on your first book “Awkward.” What a wonderful and profound thing you do. What a gift. Bailey says hi.