Books Can Bring Calm

When I’m not working with authors, I am a school administrator. I supervise and evaluate middle school English and social studies teachers. I also supervise art. My main focus is academics since I’m an academic dean. If you know anything about schools, you know no one can detach from helping students with their behavior and with self regulation regardless of his or her role.

My school is a K-8 school. Although my focus is the middle school, I have been making connections and building relationships with some of the elementary students. This is a win-win for me since these students will be in the middle school one day.

On Friday, an elementary student was really upset. I offered to spend some time with him. We did some deep breathing. Once he entered my office, he saw two books I had on display which were My Family’s Great Smoky Mountains Adventure and Ghost Text. He was really drawn to the cover of Ghost Text. (Special shout out to the illustrator Erica Branch). He asked if I could read it to him.

What made this day even better was I had the author of Ghost Text and the author of My Family’s Great Smoky Mountains Adventure with me. My school’s last day was Friday, but the young authors’ last day was on Thursday. My principal allowed the authors, who are my sons, to attend work with me. James, Jeremiah, and I took turns reading the book to him. As he listened to the book, I saw his body calm even further than it did when we took deep breaths.

That is what a good book does. It takes you from where you are and transports you to another place. I’m glad Ghost Text was the book that was able to help this student calm down and put his worries behind him.