Straight From the Mouth of Cheryl Carpinello

 

10 Things You Might Not Know About Grandma's & Grandpa's Tales

By Cheryl Carpinello

 

1. Each of these picture books take close to year to publish. That’s about how long it takes me to refine the text, find the images, have the artist draw those, and do the cover and the layout.

2. After doing the covers for Books 1 & 2, my cover designer was unable to do Book 3’s cover.

3. I reached out to another designer in England whom I had used before. She was swamped, but her artistic husband stepped up and did Book 3’s cover. He did a fantastic job, don’t you think?

4. I wrote the stories for Book 1 almost 20 years before publishing them.

5. The Book 2 stories were written nearly 15 years before publishing them.

6. I wrote The Not Too Stubborn Humpback Whale on the balcony of my Maui hotel room. I couldn’t see the whales, so I decided to create a story where one Humpback would stay around in the summer so that I could see it.

7. Ideas for the stories in Book 3 came straight from my grandkids. They are such inspirations!

8. I originally published Books 1 & 2 as Grandma’s Tales. When a gentleman was looking at the books, he told me that he wasn’t a grandma. Two weeks later Grandpa’s Tales was born!

9. I’ve had grown kids pick up Grandma/Grandpa’s Tales for older grandparents with memory problems to read since the stories are short and illustrated.

10. Many of my former students have supported my writing by buying my books for their kids.

Cheryl Carpinello taught high school English for 25 years. During that time, she worked with numerous students who didn’t like to read for a variety of reasons. However, she discovered that even the most reluctant readers became engaged in the classroom and in reading when she introduced units on King Arthur and the works of ancient world writers. Upon retiring, she set out to write fast-paced, action-filled stories in these setting to encourage young readers to read more. Her success with readers aged 8-16 led her to reach out to the youngest of readers and those readers just starting out. Revising stories she had written for her own children, she created Grandma/Grandpa’s Tales for ages 4-7.  Her four grandchildren’s conversations created the stories in Book 3 of this series.

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