One reader at a time.

This week I was thrilled to find out that my book, The Gray Garden; Aunt Nancy's Garden, is being used as a teaching tool by one of my readers, Olga. 

Olga told me that her son is having trouble with his cognitive skills, and so she is having him read one page of my book every night and then she quizzes him on what he has just read. Also when there is a word that he does not know she asks him what he thinks it means by reading the rest of the sentence or page. In every case he is able to figure out the words meaning, and this is helping him with his other school work.

In early drafts of the book it had been suggested to me that I might be using too sophisticated of a vocabulary for the age range of the books target audience (8 to 12), but I have always believed that you should not talk down to kids. Children are naturally inquisitive and when presented with something that they do not know they ask questions. I feel this is a quality that should be exploited because it encourages the learning process and opens that dialogue between student and teacher. After hearing the story from Olga about her son I am so happy that I did not dumb down the language in my book. 

Thank you so much for your story and feed back Olga! It made my week!