About the author: Sue Madway Levine has been working with children, families, and schools for more than 40 years. As a Speech and Language Therapist, a Learning Disabilities Resource Teacher, a college professor, researcher, and published author, Sue has dedicated her professional life to making a positive difference in the field of education. During her work at Dominican University in San Rafael, CA, Sue led game-making workshops for local teachers. This lead to her working in the toy and game industry, inventing new products for companies such as Parker Brothers, Milton Bradley, Hasbro, Mattel, Pressman Toy Company, Tiger Electronics, and The Great American Puzzle Factory. After having two of her textbooks published by Academic Therapy Publishing, Sue has now turned to writing children’s literature. Presently she is in private practice as the Director of Educational Services for The Child and Family Study Team. She lives in a suburb of Philadelphia, PA, with her husband, the Service Learning Coordinator at a local school district. Sue spends her free time gardening, making Sailors’ Valentines, and traveling.
Website: www.susiesshoesies.com
Facebook: www.facebook.com/ susiesshoesies
Twitter: www.twitter.com/susiesshoesies
*********************************************
My Reviews
Book 1: Susie's Shoesies: Some Dreams Do Come True
The Susie's Shoeies Series is based around a young girl, Susie, whose Grandmother gives her magical red shoes for her eighth birthday. These magical shoes get named "Susie's Shoeies" by her amazing and resilient rhyming brother, Bennett. The magical shoes allow Susie to travel throughout time, to talk to famous and/or significant people and to experience significant historical events to help Susie deal with issues in her present day life.
In the first book the world changing pioneer, Eleanor Roosevelt, teaches eight year old Susie, as well as other girls, that they have value. Mrs. Roosevelt speaks to Susie about her work in gaining equality in our county in the 1948. Susie learns so much more than a history lesson. She learns to stay calm during emergencies, to slow down and to think rationally while solving problems and to tackle inequality with "spunk and determination" (p. 78).
I love the quote by Eleanor Roosevelt "No one can make you feel inferior without your consent." The book really captures the meaning behind that statement.
What a great book to kick start a series!
Book 2: Susie's Shoeies: Another Susie's Shoeies Adventure
The second book in the series tackles the difficult topic of bullying. I feel that the section of the book that says "I couldn't believe nobody stood up for me and I did not want to be a tattletale" (p. 4), really captures what children feel when they get bullied. They don't want to speak up for fear the bullying will worsen. The second book takes Susie and her brother, Bennett, to the Olympics in 1960 where Olympic track star and world class athlete Wilma Rudolph give the kids a lesson of overcoming diversity and unfair treatment with determination and grace.
This book encourages children to conduct research, to look deeper at things, to find connections to what is happening presently and to apply it historical people and events. This gives the kids ideas on how to deal with the difficult situations.
Here are two quotes that I totally loved. The first was said by Wilma Rudolph " I ran and ran and ran everyday, and I acquired this sense of determination, this sense of spirit that I would never, never give up, no matter what else happened" Remember "triumph cannot be had without the struggle" (p. 12). I feel these are the types of encouraging statement are children need to be reading.
The book also captures the richness of Italian language, art, architecture and culinary excellence.
In the end the kids discover that the bully is going through some tough stuff at home and instead of being mean back they decide to move forward in a positive way. They join forces and find a great way to turn their once negative relationship into a campaign to better the school.
Book 3: Susie's Shoeies: A Splendid Reward
In the third book in the series we go on a scientific time travel adventure of epic proportions. Some tough decisions need to get made by kids when cheating is discovered at the school science fair. How will the kids deal with this tough subject!? You must read the book to find out.
The book explains many science based concepts such as; how experiments are conducted, how you can use predictions or create hypothesizes, how experiments involve trial and error and how they can have splendid rewards when the discovery helps other people. This book, like the others, encourages reading and research. The books really teach children that knowledge is power. What another great lesson to have our children read and eventually put into practice. How wonderful to teach learning is exciting, how it opens up your world and how it drives you to become a more well rounded, educated person.
I love this series!
Book 4: Susie's Shoeies: The Show Must Go On
In the forth book in the series the time traveling kids learn lessons of poverty, famine and drought and war. All the great elements that the series is known for are present in this book.
The book highlights how
our history is connected to our futures, how reading give you knowledge and how
knowledge can evoke change. How people's deficiencies can actually be a
be benefit, among so many other amazing lessons kids need to be learning. In
the end the kids do some amazing things to change and better their home town.
I cannot say enough how much I love the Susie's Shoeies series. I
think they are without exception some if the best books written for this age
group (8 and up). I highly recommend this series and rate it 5 stars!!
*********************************************
Q&A
Q. What inspires
your writing?
A. The
inspiration for my stories comes from life-cycle events in my life and my
connectedness to family, friends, and work. As a teacher and teacher of
teachers for more than forty years, I have been inspired by the resilience of
the children and vulnerable school communities with whom I have had the privilege
to help deal with universal educational and social issues. In writing the Susie’s Shoesies books, I wanted to find
a way to link lessons from the past with current dilemmas, through literature,
and motivate students to revalue themselves as readers and writers. I also
hoped this series would demonstrate the positive difference women have made in
world events.
Q. What is your
favorite thing about being an author?
A. This
literature series has given me an amazing opportunity to travel across the
country and visit at-risk school communities … to work with inspiring students
and teachers and show them an exciting way to approach the language arts,
social studies, and character education. Of course, showing up to a signing at
a bookstore and seeing a line of kids waiting for me is such a thrill.
Q. What is the
toughest part of being an author?
A. Editing
my manuscripts is the most challenging part of being an author. For many years, I have taught students to use
‘The Writing Process’ which involves various stages of self-editing and peer
editing. However, working through the Susie’s Shoesies documents has given me
a new appreciation of just how difficult it is to edit your own writing.
Q. If you could not be author, what would you
do/be?
A. I
consider myself an author-educator and there is nothing I would rather do than
continue working with children and teachers.
Q. What would
the story of your life be entitled?
A. Susie’s Shoesies…Some Dreams Really Do Come True!
Q. What is your
favorite book of all time?
A. John
Irving’s A Prayer for Owen Meany is
my favorite book of all time, for now! I
found it to be such a beautifully
written and deeply layered story of faith and doubt.
Q. Which character
from ANY book are you most like?
A. I would
like to think I have some of the stay-the-course
traits of Hema in Abraham
Verghese’s Cutting for Stone. On second thought, maybe this book is my
favorite of all time!
Q. What character from all of your book
are you most like?
A. As
children look at me and then the cover of the books, they usually ask me, “Are
you Susie?” While there are some aspects
of Susie Gardner that resemble me and my life (Have you seen my curls?), Granny
Ella is modeled after my own granny and I am a lot like her.
Q. What is your
favorite season?
A. I am a
summer-time kind of girl…I love the water and my gardens. We grow about fifteen different kinds of
vegetables in addition to having an enormous perennial flower bed.
Q. What inspired your book cover(s)? Or what is your favorite book cover and why?
A. As an
educator, I know the importance of frontloading…accessing
prior knowledge and preparing readers for the story or lesson to follow. The covers are supposed to be part of the
mystery as children try to figure out where the characters are going and what
will happen along the way. The cover of
book four is my current favorite; my readers will have to look very closely to
guess which country Susie, Bennett and Owen will travel to in this adventure.
Q. Tell me
something funny that happened while on a book tour or while promoting your book.
A. When I do
a book reading in a school, I usually have about an hour to finish four of the twenty
chapters in the first book of the series. Then I donate the book to the school
so the teachers can finish the story with their students after I leave. One
day, a young boy who was sitting on the floor directly in front of my chair, as
I read to his grade, started to cry when I stood up to leave. He wrapped himself around my legs and said,
“You can’t go! I don’t know what happens
to Susie and Bennett!” His teacher had
to pry him off me … so cute!
Q. Are you
working on something new?
A. With the
first four books of the Susie’s Shoesies
series completed, I am already working on the fifth book and doing more
research on the final three. When all
eight are finished, I am thinking of writing an adult novel about a teacher.
Q. Anything you
want to say to followers of this blog or those that are just stopping by?
A. Choosing
a book to read… making a choice of how to spend those few precious moments we
can actually do what we want to do, rather than what our
busy lives demand we take on, can be difficult.
Friends and family make recommendations but, for me, I find blogs provide
a great service to readers. Each blog
has its own personality and when you find one that matches your own, it’s a
safe bet you will get some good tips. Mrs.
Mommy Booknerd
takes a positive, yet selective (no posts under three stars) approach
to its reviews in a fun yet professional manner; you can get a feeling for a
book and gain an understanding of the author’s point of view. Along with giveaways, this blog is the total
package! I want to thank Emily and all
my readers and fans for spending their time with Susie and Bennett
Gardner. Please go to the series
website, www.susiesshoesies.com, and let
me know which book you are reading and what you think about that adventure. Be sure to look for the fourth book in the
series, Susie’s Shoesies…The Show Must Go On! available September 15,
2012, in time for Halloween (hint, hint)!
No comments:
Post a Comment
I love comments, so please leave some! If you are a new follower and have a blog yourself please let me know so I can follow you back! Have a great day!
Emily, AKA Mrs. Mommy Booknerd