Young author-illustrators at Newton Christian School create their own book for the StoryWalk

Samantha Davis, a middle school student at Newton Christian School, draws a rough sketch on the whiteboard, and within seconds she is surrounded by her fellow classmates who are inspecting the drawing very closely. The illustration shows an anthropomorphic banana sitting at a lunch table with an apple.

But the banana, named Bella, is much too big for the table. Davis wants to show how difficult it is for Bella to sit at the table, so she asks for feedback from her peers. Should Bella fall out of her chair? Or should the chair break? What if we show her dropping her lunch in the process? Decisions, decisions.

Oh, but I won’t spoil happens next. That is something community members will have to find out for themselves when they see the finished book and illustrations on display in a month or so at the StoryWalk in Agnes Patterson Memorial Park. But first the seventh and eighth grade class have to finish the story.

For almost three years, Newton Public Library has filled the StoryWalk displays with books. StoryWalks were created to build children’s interests in reading while also encouraging healthy outdoor activity. Youth services librarian Phyllis Peter says picture books are regularly disassembled and put into the displays at the park.

“It’s a really good activity for families to go out on an evening walk or bike ride and stop and read each one of the signs,” Peter says, noting there are a total of 22 boards capable of holding multiple pages at once. “The StoryWalk itself has been really popular and we’ve gotten lots of great feedback on it.”

Since the beginning of 2023, Jessica Moore’s students have been creating their own, original children’s book, which they have tentatively named “Bella Belongs.” They say it is a story about acceptance. The characters are all fruits — from the peach of a teacher to the cherry twins — and they’re all hand-drawn by Davis.

“It’s a lot of pressure, but it’s also been really fun,” she says.

With the full support of her classmates cheering her on, Davis has been churning out whimsical illustrations week after week to tell the story of a banana and her transition from preschool to kindergarten in a school full of apples. She has enjoyed seeing it all come together and the teamwork involved in the project.

“And seeing our story, like, actually become a story,” Davis says, adding she hopes others like it. “I hope they see it’s an important story we wanted to share.”

Moore knew she would have a very creative group of middle schoolers for the 2022-2023 school year, and one of their goals at this age is to write and structure a story. While on a walk at Agnes Patterson Park, she noticed the StoryWalk and got the idea to partner with the Newton Public Library to feature an original work.

When she pitched the project to her students, they were a little apprehensive at first. Then they thought about it some more and realized it could be fun, and a project they could all get behind. What student wouldn’t want to spend class time writing a children’s book over a research paper?

Moore’s students certainly did their homework beforehand, too. They were taken to the StoryWalk and they mapped out the elements of storytelling that happen in a children’s book. From there, Moore says she let them “run with it.” Of course they were more than happy to take charge of the project.

“We mapped it all on paper first with my stick drawings,” Moore says. “Then we put it into Google Slides and made a slide for each page, and then in the notes we put what we wanted. They told me what the story was going to say. I typed it in plain font onto each slide. Then they broke into teams.”

It was the class’s job to decide what fonts they would use and how to emphasize certain words in the story for greater effect. Even after they split into groups, they had to maintain consistency in their work. They even resorted to writing down the specific colored pencil code to use for certain characters.

“People, I don’t think, realize how hard it is to write a children’s book, because you have such limited words to make a big impact,” Moore says. “But this group works well together as teams. I can put any set of them together and they’re going to be, ‘OK, we’ll get it done.’ And they’ve done that all year long.”

Still, the group did consult the advice of Phyllis Petter, the youth services librarian at Newton Public Library, for a little help when it comes to structuring an impactful children’s book. She also showed them examples of major picture books and taught them the importance of plot, characters, problems and resolutions.

“The kids came up with the whole idea on their own, which I think they did a great job,” Peter says, adding she would love other schools to try making stories. “I think the middle school age group is a really good age to do that with because they’re old enough to understand plot and characters and work together well.”

Currently, Moore’s class is expecting to finish in the next few weeks. Students hope to be done before the end of the school year so that maybe the Newton Christian School can have a picnic at Agnes Patterson Park and see the completed work on display for the StoryWalk.

Seeing her students collaborate and fully latch onto a project fills Moore with joy, but she’s also not surprised by the level of care they put in their work.

“I’m just so excited for them to see it out there,” she says. “I like it when they’re proud of it. Sometimes people think middle schoolers are cocky. No. They’re really hard on themselves. When they do something and I see them be like, ‘Hey! I did that!’ That’s what I like! I want them to feel that way.

“Because I feel that way about them all the time.”