News Get the Latest for Monarch Publishers Children's Book - Jake and the Migration of the Monarch (Butterfly)

Monarch Publishers, in partnership with the Greenville County School District, has been awarded a $26,000 Hollingsworth Grant to provide books, education materials, literacy and arts instruction, and book readings to low income children and families in Greenville County. Books, materials and instruction will also be provided to educators whose focus is providing educations and arts enrichment opportunities to low income families. The term of this grant is January - May 2006.

By Lyn Riddle
STAFF WRITER

Jake and the Migration of the Monarch, a children's book by Greenville County School Trustee Crystal Ball O'Connor, has received the Teacher's Corner Award of Excellence for its teaching resources and Web site.

In addition, Monarch Publishers was awarded a $29,000 Hollingsworth Grant to allow the company to provide the book and offer educational enrichment opportunities for disadvantaged children and families. The award also will be used for professional development for the teachers who serve disadvantaged children.

Teachers Corner is an online teacher resource Web site that gives monthly awards to other Web sites dedicated to teaching.

O'Connor said the book is about to go into a second printing.

"We had planned to sell the first printing of our book in three years. Instead we are having the reorder within the first year!" she said.

O'Connor and illustrator Valerie Hollinger, a former Greenville County School Trustee,

have made appearances at 30 East Coast bookstores and 16 teacher conferences and have visited 40 schools.

O'Connor and Hollinger became friends while serving on the school board. They decided to launch Monarch Publishers after a simple conversation over coffee at Hollinger's new apartment turned to a discussion of hopes and dreams. O'Connor had an idea for a children's book and Hollinger had the talent to illustrate it.

O'Connor formed the basis of the story during a visit with her husband's parents when her now 4-year-old son Jake was an infant. She was sitting with Jake when a monarch butterfly flew by, then another and another until she realized she was watching the annual rite of butterflies making their way to Mexico for the winter.

"I realized I was seeing something extra-ordinary," she said. When dusk fell, she went inside and wrote down her feelings.

She started researching the children's book business and in the fall of 2001, during one of her three-times-a-week overnight stays with her aging parents, she began writing. Months passed.

She'd write and rewrite. She'd set it aside. She'd read more children's books.

What she came up with is a timeless story of how one generation influences the next. Jake, a preschooler, is watching the migration with his mother, who sets aside her busy schedule to spend time with her son. The underlying lesson centers on the need to save the butterfly habitat in Mexico but also speaks movingly about the ties that bind generations of butterflies and - by extension people - together.

In school visits, Hollinger and O'Connor don wings to perform a skit about butterflies and read from the book.

"I'd like to help children appreciate the part they can play in protecting the environment, and to make a significant contribution to high-quality children's literature," O'Connor said. "Most importantly, I want to celebrate the extraordinary love between parents and children across generations."

By Heather Magruder

Dr. Crystal Ball O'Connor recalls a sunny afternoon during which she relaxed in a comfortable chair outside with her youngest child on her lap. The afternoon was one of those peaceful times, spent one-on-one with a child; one of those days that can be so elusive for most families. Parents typically carry the memory of such days in the back of their minds, ready to pull them out when the weekday gets a bit too harried or children fight a little harder than usual over homework or eating their vegetables or whatever else might get in the way of harmonious family relationships. O'Connor is no different from the rest of us in that way. The memory of that afternoon with Jake on her lap is a precious one that she will hang onto. The difference between O'Connor and the most of the rest of us is that, in addition to making a memory, O'Connor has made a children's book, complete with its message of love, nurturance, family ties and the importance of preserving nature, out of that one experience.

While Jake and his Mom sat together that afternoon, a monarch butterfly happened by. As O'Connor told Jake the story of the butterfly's journey, the seed of the children's book planted itself. At the time, O'Connor was caring for her aging parents as well as her children. "I wrote in my old family home," O'Connor recalls, "listening out for Mom and Dad."

Although Jake and the Migration of the Monarch began that afternoon with Jake spotting the monarch butterfly, it is more than that. That O'Connor crafted a tale that links us with nature as well as linking the generations of family should come as no surprise to those who know the author. Not only is O'Connor an involved mother of three who was raising young children and caring for aging parents at the same time, she is also a former director of the Georgia Council on Aging and a current Greenville County Schools trustee.

"The book is about nature," she says. "It's about helping children preserve and protect the gifts of family, nature and literacy. It's about the universal message of coming home and always finding your way back home."

As with any excellent children's book, the illustrations are as important as the text. With this in mind, O'Connor knew just where to turn. She and Valerie Bunch Hollinger had known each other for some time, collaborating as school board trustees and finding common ground in other areas as well. "When I saw her portraits, I knew she had to illustrate the book," O'Connor says. She asked Hollinger to read the story and decide if illustrating the book would be of interest.

"We both went into high gear," O'Connor says of their collaboration.

When the book came out a year ago, the pair estimated that it would

take three years to sell all of their first printing. Now a year later, they are ready to come out with the second printing, which has a new dust cover and comes with a CD. O'Connor and Hollinger are also working on a second book.

"We are as excited about the second book as we were about the first," says O'Connor. She is not only excited about having another book on the shelves, but is also thrilled that the books "speak to the power that women have in preserving their family stories."

If you would like to see how O'Connor and Hollinger have turned one family's story into a book that has received accolades from readers of all ages as well as from organizations such as the National Center for the Study of Children's Literature, head down to local bookstores and pick up a copy or go to www. MonarchPublishers.com.

Crystal Ball O'Connor ’78: Her Metamorphosis Into an Author & Environmental Conservationist
by Emma Watson

Walk into any Barnes and Noble or local bookstore in the Southeast and you’ll likely find Dr. Crystal Ball O’Connor. She’ll be in the children’s book section—you’ll find her book, Jake and the Migration of the Monarch, on the Featured Selections shelf beside some familiar old favorites. You might even be lucky enough to find Crystal herself, dressed in her monarch butterfly wings and enchanting a group of children, parents, grandparents, and others who couldn’t resist her heart-warming story of Jake and his mother as they watch a glorious migration of monarch butterflies on the South Carolina coast.

Jake’s mother tells him, “Just as your parents and grandparents help set the path for you, the butterflies do the same thing.” Together they celebrate their connection to one another, family, and nature as the monarch travelers flutter by on their path toward home.

Dr. O’Connor completed her doctorate in Education and Human Development at Vanderbilt University, is the former Director of the Georgia Council on Aging, and is currently serving her eighth year as a Trustee on the Greenville County School Board. Crystal lives in Greenville with her husband Jim and their three children.

Combining her many roles in family and community, Crystal has written and published her first children’s book, Jake and the Migration of the Monarch. This beautifully told book, with illustrations by portrait artist and fellow School Board Trustee Valerie Hollinger, fulfills Crystal’s goal to “help children preserve and protect the gifts of nature, family, and literacy.”

Illustrator Hollinger created the cover art from an actual photo of Crystal's son Jake.

Author O’Connor and illustrator Hollinger became publishers when they established their own company, Monarch Publishers, to provide the quick response they needed to get the book ready for distribution. And what a reception the book received. In more than 100 visits to bookstores, schools, and teacher conferences the response was so enthusiastic to the message of this environmentally conscious book that the first printing of 5,000 copies was exhausted in less than a year. Wanting to offer resources beyond the book itself, Crystal established a website, crystal@monarchpublishers.com , to provide not only resources and activities for children and families, but also well-researched connections to school curriculum requirements. Praise for this approach has come in from many quarters.

According to the Education Institute at the North Carolina Blumenthal Performing Arts Center, “The thorough and practical curriculum, integrating materials that accompany the book on CD and on the website, help to ensure that it’s not only good reading, but that teachers have well-prepared resource tools thatthey can use to help their students meet curriculum requirements in multiple subject areas.” To develop these curricular activities, Crystal enlisted the aid of teacher experts in the various disciplines. Sharon Kazee, Dean of the Governor’s School for the Arts and Humanities and former CCES music teacher, coordinated the effort, and personally developed the outstanding teaching activities in the performing arts.

The Charleston Post and Courier hailed the book for furthering the concept of “extending learning” beyond the school walls and making “this concept readily available to families.” Not only did the book receive a positive response, the website won the prestigious national Award of Excellence from Teacher’s Corner.

Back to the butterfly-winged Dr. O’Connor. In an engaging voice Crystal invites children and their families to involve themselves in the critical conservation message: you can help save the monarchs, the milkweed plant that hosts the butterflies, and the fir tree forests in Mexico.

(A packet of milkweed seeds accompanies the special gift set to give children an opportunity to do something active; the gift set includes the seeds, a Monarch butterfly finger puppet, and a photo of the cocoon, all wrapped in Monarch butterfly paper.)

As Ms. Kazee recently told The Greenville News, “They have this great story that’s about so much more than butterflies. It can be about families; it can be about coming home; it can be about reading with your children.” And it is about giving children the chance to feel connected to geography, science, music, dance, and conservation activities that they can do themselves.

In fact, the value of these enriched connections to home, school, and world community were recently recognized when Dr. O’Connor’s Monarch Publishers was honored with a Hollingsworth Grant of $25,000 to provide the book and educational enrichment activities for disadvantaged children and their families. Over the next several months more than 1,400 families will receive the book, participate in related early literacy activities, and have the opportunity to work directly with the author and illustrator. More than 100 families will receive the Spanish edition of her book.

Crystal is serious about her work with Jake and the Migration of the Monarch. Her business card is a package of milkweed seeds, the food monarchs must have to survive because it protects them against predators. Crystal enjoys most working with students and teachers to demonstrate the value of the arts in engaging young learners. O’Connor and Hollinger have made their own “migration” to a variety of East Coast audiences, mesmerizing students and adults alike with their Musical Migration Adventure.

Visit the website and fi nd yourself exploring the multiple connections to high-quality conservation activities as well as music, geography, science, math, and reading. You’ll learn, too, that Jake and the Migration of the Monarch has been selected as a “Highly Recommended Book” by the National Center for the Study of Children’s Literature. “This heartfelt dialogue between mother and child models attentive parenting while also revealing the wonders of the natural world. A superb choice for family reading,” wrote Alida Allison, reviewer for the National Center for the Study of Children’s Literature (NCSCL).

Or, you may be lucky enough to catch Crystal at your local bookstore wearing her monarch wings and telling her story to yet another gathering of families who find themselves invited to join others in preserving “the gifts of nature, family, and literacy.”

If you’d like to contact Crystal Ball O’Connor, or if you would like to receive a personalized copy of her book, please e-mail her through her website at crystal@monarchpublishers.com.

Emmie Watson taught junior English at CCES from 1974-78 and received her M. Ed. from Furman University before she “retired” to raise her newborn son (and daughter three years later). At present, Ms. Watson teaches senior English at Eastside High School where she has taught for the last thirteen years, served on the school district Education Plan Committee, the District Teacher Evaluation Writing Committee, and the District Arts Standards Committee. A Bread Loaf Fellow at the Middlebury College graduate school of English, Ms. Watson will receive her MA in August 2006 from the Bread Loaf School of English at Oxford University where she has been studying for three summers.

On a personal note, Ms. Watson writes, “I have had the extraordinary pleasure of working with Crystal on the Greenville County School District Education Plan for several years. We have remained friends since I was her teacher at CCES. When she asked me to read and then edit her delightful book, I couldn’t wait to begin. The journey has been one of respect and admiration for this talented and brilliant young woman.”

Greenville writers create moving work

In an a recent article entitled "Monarch magic, Greenville women make their own migration to the field of children's literature," you introduced your readers not only to a great children's book, but also a great story about leadership in our community.

We can be proud that two school board trustees, one former and one current, collaborated to write and illustrate the story of "Jake and the Migration of the Monarch," form a publishing company and reach out to so many young learners.

They have taken their advocacy work in early childhood and arts in the curriculum to a new level celebrating the beauty of family, nature and literacy. Since Ms. Callum-Penso's delightful article, author Crystal Ball O'Connor and illustrator Valerie Bunch Hollinger have received the National Award of Excellence for their Web site and teaching resources, www.MonarchPublishers.com, and the highest rating by the National Center of the Study of Children's Literature.

Finally, thanks to the Hollingsworth Foundation, their book and their work with teachers, families and students will soon come to life for many in Greenville County who would not otherwise have this outstanding educational opportunity.

Jake and the Migrationof the Monarch

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