March 25

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Because Everyone Has a Story…by Kate Messner

Posted by on March 25, 2024 in Author Posts | 2 Comments

There’s nothing quite like the first day of school. That excited-nervous, jittery-joyful anticipation of new classmates, and maybe new friends. Turns out, it’s the same feeling you get when you embark on a huge collaborative project with sixteen other authors whose work you’ve always loved and admired. And it’s also the feeling you get when you introduce that project – an eighteen-book, multi-author series – to readers for the first time. So the truth is, my heart’s beating a little faster than usual and my fingers are tingling a bit as I type this…because THE KIDS IN MRS. Z’S CLASS launches next month, and I’m pretty much bursting with enthusi-anxious anticipation. 

THE KIDS IN MRS. Z’S CLASS is a first-of-its-kind series for elementary school readers, about all of the amazing kids in one third grade classroom. 

18 kids.

18 stories.

18 secrets. 

And each story is written by a different amazing author. When Algonquin editorial director Cheryl Klein and I started brainstorming about this series, our first order of business was to create a wish-list. If we could build an an absolute dream team of authors, who would be included? Because of the highly collaborative nature of the project – everyone’s main character is a secondary character in everyone else’s books! – we knew we needed to recruit great, funny writers who were also team players and would be excited to collaborate with colleagues. We were thrilled when we started sending out invitations and pretty much everyone said yes. Our team began to come together in the summer and fall of 2022, and we’ve been bouncing ideas around ever since. 

I’m almost always enthusiastic when I talk about writing projects, but maybe you’ve noticed that I’m extra giddy about this one. If you’re wondering why, just take a look at the list of colleagues I get to work with…

The first two books in the series come out April 30th. 

The rest of the books will follow, two per season over the next three years. It’s a super-ambitious schedule because we know readers will be impatient to read the books that feature theirfavorite characters. 

This wouldn’t be a Nerdy Book Club post if I didn’t share some behind-the-books secrets about this project. So here are a few of my favorite moments of collaborative joy from these past two years…

Cornering Rajani LaRocca in the hallway of an old inn on Lake Champlain where a bunch of authors were having a writing retreat to ask her if she’d consider being part of the team. I told her she could think about it. (She said yes in the hallway.) We named the class guinea pig together over breakfast in Cambridge a few months later. (It’s Honey, btw. But don’t get too close. Honey doesn’t want to be your friend.) 

When William Alexander and Mike Jung (both of whose characters love fantasy and role-playing games) decided that the town of Peppermint Falls needed a comic store and named it Doomscroll. 

Kekla Magoon emailing the team to find out what everyone’s character wanted to do in the school variety show that happens in book six. And then Kekla telling everyone that yes, their characters all had to do something, even if they were feeling shy.

When Eliot Schrefer’s character Wyatt sits with Karina Yan Glaser’s character Poppy on the school bus one day. (You’ll have to wait for book five to learn why that’s life-changing for Wyatt!) 

When Kyle Lukoff told me that Sebastian’s dialogue in the first book of the series reminded him of his third grade self. 

The way series illustrator Kat Fajardo drew Tracey Baptiste’s character Fia in her favorite t-shirt (which features a mermaid!) 

The way Meg Medina’s character Carlota and Laurel Snyder’s character Ruthie share a love of all things dramatic. 

And most of all, the fact that kids will get to read stories by all of these amazing authors, along with Linda Urban, Olugbemisola Rhuday-Perkovich, Martha Brockenbrough, HenaKhan, Lamar Giles, and Christine Day. 

And speaking of collaboration and fun…when the first two books launch this spring, Rajani and I will be going on book tour together. We hope you’ll come see us if our tour brings us to your town, but even if it doesn’t, we’d love to invite you and your readers to a special virtual author visit and writing workshop. We’ll be sharing more about our writing process, playing a couple of fun interactive games, and inviting kids to create their own characters, using the same character building worksheet we all used to create ours. It’s going to be so much fun! And best of all, it’s free for everyone who pre-orders the first two books in the series from my local indie, The Bookstore Plus in Lake Placid. You can order here – either paperback or hardcover – and we’ll send your virtual author visit invitation to the same email you use for your order. 

We’re so excited (and yes, a little first-day-of-school nervous, too!) for readers to meet THE KIDS IN MRS. Z’S CLASS. Our hope is that this series is a huge empathy builder, reminding kids that everyone has a story – in Mrs. Z’s Class and in their own – and that everyone’s story counts. We also can’t wait for readers to try out our character worksheet, create even more students for Mrs. Z’s Class, and collaborate with their friends writing stories of their own.