I have wanted to write books ever since I was a little kid. I used
to make up poems and songs back then, in the stairwell to our
upstairs in Urbandale, Iowa. It was the only quiet place in the
whole house!I didn't have my own room -- ever! -- when I was
growing up, so I found ways to be "alone" by writing, playing in
the corner of the backyard, and hiding from all the noise -- in the
stairwell. I kept diaries when I was a student in grade school and
junior high school. I always felt guilty when I didn't make an
entry for every day. Now I know that a writer can write every other
day or every third day and still be good at it. I wish someone
would have told me that if I didn't feel like writing one day, I
could skip it. I always did those chain letters, too, because I
felt so guilty if I didn't. I remember getting up early before
school so I could hand-copy one chain letter five times and deliver
it to five of my friends so that nothing bad would happen to me or
my family. Now I don't do them at all! In college, I kept journals,
especially when I was traveling. I went to Venezuela and Spain as
part of my Spanish studies. Before I became a published
picture-book author, I was a teacher in three different states. I
taught in Ashland, Nebraska, Council Bluffs, Iowa, and Ramona,
California.
I have also been a U.S. Post Office letter carrier, a bartender, a
racetrack ticket seller, a door-to-door salesperson, a
telemarketer, and a Sunday school teacher. Somewhere between
salesperson and letter carrier, I earned a degree in Spanish. Why
would a white girl from Iowa study a foreign language? Because my
dad could speak a little, and he and my older sister could carry on
a limited conversation at supper. I wanted to know what they were
saying. So did everyone else, but they had to wait until they were
old enough to take Spanish in ninth grade. My mom never did learn
any Spanish. She always wondered if we were talking about her.
-)
The summer after high school I went to Mexico City with my high
school Spanish teacher and 30 students. I was amazed by the new
culture and the language I had been studying for four years. I went
to Iowa State University, planning to major in elementary
education, which I did. But I kept taking Spanish classes and
eventually had so many credits that it only made sense to get a
dual degree with a double major in elementary education and
Spanish. I also picked up a minor in secondary education. I must
have known that I would end up teaching high school Spanish.
I went to Caracas, Venezuela, to do my student teaching with
another ISU student. I taught Spanish to six-year-old first graders
in an American school. They were trilingual -- speaking English,
Spanish, and the language of their native country. They were mostly
children of oil company executives who had come there from all over
the world. After we left Venezuela, I did my secondary
student-teaching (Spanish) in a Catholic high school in Des Moines,
Iowa. That was my first experience teaching teenagers. Then I went
to Spain to study for two months. My Venezuelan accent was all
wrong. I began to realize that Spanish is not the same from country
to country.
I came back from Spain and graduated from ISU. I had applied to
teach third grade in Nebraska. Instead, they hired me to teach high
school Spanish. My Iowa roommate from Caracas got the third grade
job so that we could come out to Nebraska together. Two years
later, I decided to move to Omaha to get a job in a bigger school.
I taught junior high English, reading, and writing across the river
in Council Bluffs, Iowa. I asked the principal at Lewis Central
Middle School if I could teach Spanish during the lunch hour. Forty
kids showed up the first day. By the time I left L.C. six years
later, I was teaching Spanish all day long. I'll never forget a
parent who came to teacher conferences and said to me, 'Why does my
son have to learn another langu
"Brilliantly conceived...Readers will find these multi-textured illustrations fascinating and as imaginative as the concept." -Kirkus Reviews"Each of Elya's couplets seamlessly introduces or reinforce two Spanish words, while the cunning rhyme scheme helps readers with their pronunciation...An appealingly painless introduction to another language." -Booklist
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