And my principal had been connected with a woman, Elizabeth Rich, who was working for Ed Week teacher magazine. And she was in charge of a column called “Ask the Mentor.” And she was always scrounging for mentors for that column. I guess no one wanted to be a mentor. I don’t know. I think they were daunted by the possibilities of it. And so Elizabeth called my principal, Ron, and said do you have any teachers that you think could write this column for us? It’s just one column. They answer some questions. We send the questions to them. They respond back.
And Ron said I have one. So, Elizabeth called me and she said let me get this right. Your students read 40, 50 books a year without any rewards or incentives? And I said isn’t reading its own reward? And she said you’re going to be a tough sell for the column, Donalyn. You don’t have a PhD. You’ve never written a book, but I’ll just take it to the editorial board and see what they say.
Well, I guess they were desperate because they took me. So, I remember telling my husband I don’t know the first thing about writing a column. He said just roll with it. Just go with it. You’ll never get this chance again. The column was supposed to be one column. It turned into three columns. They were three of the most popular columns Teacher Magazine had that year. Sadly, the most popular column that year was why teachers leave the profession. So, I was happy to be next on the list.
And before I finished the run of the column they invited me to blog for them. I didn’t know the first thing about blogging. I started calling the blog The Book Whisperer. Sometimes now I think the name is a little cheesy, but it’s sticky. People remember it. So, I wrote the column. And then a couple of publishers – well, I wrote the blog. A couple of publishers contacted me and asked me if I would write a book.
And I remember thinking I don’t know the first thing about writing a book. And the publisher I eventually chose was Jossey-Bass for The Book Whisperer. And I remember they flew out to Dallas and invited my husband and I to go out to dinner at one of the fanciest restaurants in Dallas. And we’re driving over there and my husband – I told my husband, I said I’m just going to say no. I don’t know the first thing about writing a book. And he said tell them after dinner because he’s in health care and I’m a teacher and we don’t get to eat in fancy restaurants.
By the end of that dinner they had convinced me that they cared about my ideas, that they really were interested in sending those ideas out into the world on how to get kids to read.
