From Teacher to Children's Author: One Woman's Journey

Guest post by Christina Dankert

Fifteen years ago, I remember walking around my college campus and stopping to look up at our eight story, beautiful campus library. I was working on my degree in Early Childhood Education and this library had the best children's floor filled with books, puppets, educational games, die-cut letter and shape presses, and other materials we could check out. I knew then that I wanted to write a book and I wanted it to be in that library for future aspiring teachers to check out and read to their students. 

Fast forward a few years into my teaching career. I began as a kindergarten teacher and then moved to second grade. I love working with young children as you have the opportunity to not only teach academics, but life lessons. After a few years of teaching, I had my own children. Between my children and my students, I was reading A LOT of picture books. There are so many books available regarding character traits, kindness, and empathy, which are some of my favorite books to read aloud. However, I failed to find a book on kindness that included the idea of being kind to ourselves. This is when the idea of The Kindness Machine began.

I envisioned the writing journey to be effortless and that someone would magically scoop up my story and run with it. The world of writing is a true test of grit, patience and perseverance. I wrote my story over the course of a few months and had what I thought was a solid beginning, middle and end of a children’s book on kindness. Now what? What was I supposed to do with those words? 

I contacted our local children’s librarian who helped steer me in the right direction by pulling books such as Children’s Writer’s and Illustrator’s Market and Guide to Query Letters. I quickly found out that this process of getting a manuscript submitted, accepted and published would include a lot of research. 

I read books about writing children’s books, I listened to podcasts, I read blogs, and attended a Women in Publishing virtual conference. I asked friends, family and co-workers to read my manuscript as beta readers and honestly critique it. That may be one of the most challenging steps in the writing journey. No one wants to be challenged on their work but more importantly, no one wants a rejection letter either. It is easier to take honest and constructive feedback from your early readers and modify your work than get a rejection letter. I am beyond thankful for all of my beta readers as they all took my work and helped polish it. 

Through the Women in Publishing Summit I was able to not only gain a wealth of knowledge about the publishing industry, but I found my writing tribe. I met a group of ladies with hearts of gold who understand the writing journey, who have faced rejection, several have published books, but all of them had a goal to publish the piece they were currently working on. The support and motivation from these ladies has been incredible and we continue to meet via Zoom twice a month. 

After years of dreaming, months of writing and researching, I am happy to report that The Kindness Machine will be available for pre-order on November 13, 2021, which is World Kindness Day. The absolute icing on the cake in my writing journey, is that my husband, Chad, is the illustrator. He is able to take the words and bring them to life through his amazing illustrations. 

The Kindness Machine takes place in a second-grade classroom with an engaging and energetic teacher, Mr. Wilson. Mr. Wilson loves to build special inventions for his students to help teach concepts in engaging ways. He builds a kindness machine and it is here that his students learn how to be kind not only to others, but to themselves as well. 

As adults we struggle with this idea of being kind to ourselves. We are our own worst critics. If we can teach children to be kind to themselves at a young age, imagine how strong and confident they will be as adults. 

To anyone with a story idea, my advice to you is to write it down, spend time editing and allow other readers to give you feedback. The feedback is not an attack on your writing, but if you invite the right readers into that space to help you critique it, they are giving you feedback because they want you to succeed. My other piece of advice is to find your writing tribe. Your family and friends will support you, but your writing tribe will understand each phase of your writing journey. 

Most importantly, don’t give up. Your story has a place on a bookshelf. Your story needs to be told. Your story needs to be shared with the world. Keep writing, be kind to yourself and I can’t wait to read your work. ​

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Christina Dankert is a second-grade teacher. She has a passion for literacy and believes that we can change the world by reading to the children in our lives.  Click here for free kindness bookmarks for teachers. 
https://christinadankert.com/

Instagram: @Christina Dankert 
Facebook: @ChristinaDankertAuthor 

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