Every story starts as a spark, an idea, an itch, if you will. I thought you might enjoy hearing the reason that I wrote the Traveling Trunk Series.
I work in an elementary school. My job is to work with students who are just learning English as another language. I came into this position about five years ago, but I have worked with students just entering the United States my whole career as a classroom teacher. I love my job.
One of the things that I am always curious about is where my students come from. They arrive with a wealth of knowledge and experiences that I’ll never know. Some of them are fleeing from persecution and come here with only the clothes on their back. They are brought into a culture they know nothing about and spend their day with people whom they don’t understand nor understand them. Some of them have never even seen a flushing toilet!
I get to help them navigate this new environment and adapt to it. Every day I am amazed at the resiliency and desire to learn that these children have. They are grateful for the opportunities that they have and absorb knowledge like sponges. I have a student right now who gets up at 4:00 every morning just to study. He gets upset at his classmates when they mess around and don’t take their lessons seriously. I really hope his tenacity and drive will rub off on them.
I wanted to find a way to bring a little of their culture and identity to my school I wanted to honor them and help other children learn about where they came from. That’s when the idea for the traveling trunk came to me. What if I could have kids learn about different places in the world through the eyes of a child like them, who has never been to these places?
I decided to start with Carla’s Adventure in Guatemala. My sister has a son from Guatemala and I wanted to learn about the country and the celebrations they have there. I also have students that I work with who were born there. That book launched the series and helped me develop my process. I always try to incorporate the following aspects into the book: a festival or celebration, clothing, food, transportation, climate, geography, family, language, and wildlife (if possible).
My next book, Carla’s Adventure in Thailand, came about because of the number of students that I have from there. I also wanted to have their help in writing the books, so I asked them for ideas for favorite foods, festivals, and things they remember about their country. I always send home copies of my manuscript to their families, so they can act as my “sensitivity readers’ to make sure that I am always representing their culture correctly and in a positive light. I think the kids enjoy the process as much as I do! I give them a signed copy of the book when I get them published and the looks on their faces is priceless.
Carla’s Adventure in Sweden is book 3 and I have a confession to make. I don’t have any students from Sweden. When I wrote this one, I was trying to balance out the travels by including all the continents. Most of my students are either from Latin America, or Asia, but I didn’t want all the books to be concentrated in just those two parts of the world. I have a friend who lives part of the year in Sweden, and a colleague who travels there quite a bit, so I picked their brains for this one.
Book 4, Carla’s Adventure in Mexico, had two purposes for me. A majority of the students I work with have strong ties to Mexico, so of course I had to include it. The second reason I wrote it and used the celebration of Dia de la Independencia is because people are always confusing this holiday with Cinco de Mayo. I wanted a fun way to clear up the confusion. I also included Carla’s best friend, Willow, in this one and had her in a wheelchair to further the inclusion theme.
A little side note about the cookie recipe in the back of the Mexico book: I wanted to include an authentic recipe, but didn’t know which one. I consulted several of my co-workers who are from Mexico and decided to have a “cookie-off” with the staff to decided which one to include. I made one kind and a colleague made another kind. At a staff meeting, we set out both kinds, without letting anyone know which kind we each made. We gave the staff a token and set a cup next to each type of cookie. They had to decide which kind they liked better by putting their token in the cup. Mine were Marranitos (Mexican Gingerbread pigs). They were good, but I’m secretly glad hers won!
The most recent book, Carla’s Adventure in South Korea, came about because I had a practicum student from South Korea. She helped me with a lot of the ideas, and proofread it for me. I was intrigued by the idea of Children’s Day and learned that many cultures around the world celebrate this.
I took a break from writing these stories to pursue writing some adult books, but I’m thinking that I’d like to get back to them. I miss traveling with Carla. I have students from some countries that I’d never heard of like Eritrea and the Republic of Benin (both in Africa). I’d like to add their stickers to Carla’s trunk, too.