SATA
ENTRY TYPE: new
WORK TITLE: DO YOU KNOW THEM?
WORK NOTES:
PSEUDONYM(S):
BIRTHDATE:
WEBSITE: https://www.shanakeller.com
CITY:
STATE:
COUNTRY: United States
NATIONALITY: American
LAST VOLUME:
RESEARCHER NOTES:
PERSONAL
Children: daughters.
ADDRESS
CAREER
Writer.
AVOCATIONS:Yoga, jiujitsu, running, traveling, photography.
WRITINGS
SIDELIGHTS
[open new]Shana Keller is an author of picture books that explore powerful moments in American history, with a focus on African American experiences. She has lived in numerous locations around the country as well as in Europe. A paragraph about inventor and polymath Benjamin Banneker brought home from school by one of her daughters was the seed of Keller’s first picture book. About the onset of her writing career, Keller told Book Q&As with Deborah Kalb, “I’ve found my niche, as they say, and I can’t think of a better way to share my love of fascinating stories with children.”
Ticktock Banneker’s Clock finds Banneker, a curious young man, intrigued by the workings of a pocket watch he disassembles. Through scientific analysis, trial and error, and two years’ worth of patience, he succeeds in building his own big clock. As related in the author’s note, Banneker was born free in 1731—and showed the nation early on what African American minds were capable of. A Kirkus Reviews writer declared that Keller “does a good job detailing the process” Banneker followed and deftly recreates his “peaceful, idyllic existence in a quiet and pleasant book.”
Keller was inspired to write her next picture book, Fly, Firefly, by a passage in a collection of letters by environmental scientist Rachel Carson, about seeing a firefly among flashes of bioluminescence in the water in coastal Maine. In the story, a firefly carried out to sea on a wind current gets confused by the flashes and accidentally plunges underwater. On hand to save the insect in distress is the young narrator. In Booklist, Becca Worthington affirmed that “it’s terrific that the story deviates from its origin to be retold featuring people of color.”
A trip to the Frederick Douglass-Isaac Myers Maritime Park & Museum in Baltimore helped support Keller’s writing of Bread for Words: A Frederick Douglass Story. Passed from one slaveholder to another as a youth, Douglass realized that learning to read would be key to securing his freedom. Denied formal education but usually sufficiently fed, Douglass traded food to hungry white peers in exchange for reading lessons. Appreciating how Keller highlight’s Douglass’s “persistence” and “clever means,” Kelly Jahng affirmed in School Library Journal that Bread for Words “shows the complexity of slavery and the driving need for freedom.”
The Peach Pit Parade: A World War I Story centers on young Polly, whose father is fighting overseas. Learning at school that the military needs peach pits by the million to make charcoal for soldiers’ gas masks, Polly leads her Girl Scout troop in organizing a pit-collecting parade through their Black community. Everyone is inspired to pitch in and help the patriotic cause. The back matter offers details about the science and history behind the story, including the era’s segregation. A Publishers Weekly reviewer observed that Keller’s “matter-of-fact storytelling … balances Polly’s fictional experiences with historical facts,” making for a “unique introduction to the Great War.” Admiring how Black children especially, as depicted in the illustrations, “will see themselves as important agents of history,” a Kirkus Reviews writer called The Peach Pit Parade “understated and lovely.”
Uncertainties of the postbellum period are brought to life in Do You Know Them? Families Lost and Found after the Civil War. Young Lettie has long wondered about her parents and siblings, who were separated from her during enslavement, and abolition instills her with hope. Learning to read with her uncle’s help, she recites newspaper ads about missing relations in church every Sunday. After learning of a successful reunion, she decides to work hard and save pennies until she can buy her own ad in the Richmond Planet. The wait is long, but the reward proves immeasurable.
The back matter relates that the heartrending ads quoted in the book are taken from real life. In Booklist, Carolyn Phelan commented that Keller narrates “in a straightforward way, letting the poignant ads speak for themselves” in this “simply written, moving” work. A Kirkus Reviews writer proclaimed that Keller’s “richly inspiring and informative picture book illuminates an oft-overlooked—but incredibly important—chapter of U.S. history.” This reviewer found in Do You Know Them? a “riveting lesson on Reconstruction.”[close new]
BIOCRIT
PERIODICALS
Booklist, April 15, 2020, Becca Worthington, review of Fly, Firefly, p. 52; December 1, 2023, Carolyn Phelan, review of Do You Know Them? Families Lost and Found after the Civil War, p. 128.
Kirkus Reviews, July 15, 2016, review of Ticktock Banneker’s Clock; March 1, 2022, review of The Peach Pit Parade: A World War I Story; November 15, 2023, review of Do You Know Them?
ONLINE
Book Q&As with Deborah Kalb, https://deborahkalbbooks.blogspot.com/ (February 25, 2020), author Q&A; (July 17, 2020), author Q&A.
Publishers Weekly, https://www.publishersweekly.com/ (June 9, 2022), review of The Peach Pit Parade; (November 16, 2023), review of Do You Know Them?
School Library Journal, https://www.slj.com/ (February 21, 2020), Kelly Jahng, review of Bread for Words: A Frederick Douglass Story.
Shana Keller website, https://www.shanakeller.com (April 28, 2024).
The day I got my library card was far more exciting than the day I got my driver's license. Okay, maybe not. But it was just as liberating! In addition to reading (or writing) about amazing people and learning as much as I can about history, I always take time off to watch a good football game.
I have traveled my whole life and moved all over the country (too many times to count) and some parts of Europe. Despite the many moves, exploring the world is one of my favorite things to do along with taking tons of photos to document my adventures.
When not writing, I love to practice jiujitsu, attempt challenging yoga poses, run half-marathons, read with a hot cup of earl grey close by, do no more than 1000-piece puzzles, make and eat pumpkin cupcakes year-round, and learn German for the millionth time.
Friday, July 17, 2020
Q&A with Shana Keller
Shana Keller is the author of the new children's picture book Fly, Firefly. She also has written the picture books Bread for Words and Ticktock Banneker's Clock. She lives in North Carolina.
Q: How did you come up with the idea for Fly, Firefly?
A: A few years ago, I read a collection of letters author and scientist Rachel Carson wrote to her dear friend Dorothy Freeman in a book called Always, Rachel.
In one of her letters Rachel described to Dorothy how she and her niece came across a firefly while at her summer home in Southport, Maine. On the shore, Rachel joked how one gem “took to the air!” It was a firefly who “thought” the flashes in the water were other fireflies signaling to him.
Rachel told Dorothy that she wanted to write a children’s story based on the incident, “but maybe that will never get written,” she said.
As you can imagine, that last sentence “sparked” my curiosity. Rachel believed in and wrote about teaching our children to wonder. “If a child is to keep alive his inborn sense of wonder, he needs the companionship of at least one adult who can share it, rediscovering with him the joy, excitement, and mystery of the world we live in.”
Our biggest job is to share that wonder with them, and it’s my hope that this book honors her memory and her ideas in that way.
Q: Did you need to do any research to write the book, and if so, did you learn anything surprising?
A: I did! I did a lot of research on bioluminescence and insects. Did you know that beetles were the first animals to develop wings? I also refreshed my knowledge of Rachel Carson and discovered that she had a love of poetry.
Though this is not pertaining (that I know of) to the children’s story she discusses; in another letter written to her, she was quoted by her friend Dorothy (regarding Rachel’s poetic aims), as having said, “I just want it to be simple and clean and strong and sharp as a sword—for it has work to do!”
After all of my research and reading, I then reached out to an entomologist, the director of the Rachel Carson Homestead in Springdale, Pennsylvania, and a marine biologist who studied at the same Marine Biology Lab Rachel had in Woods Hole, Massachusetts.
I learned that what Rachel saw was bioluminescence (often and mistakenly called phosphorescence at that time), caused by a likely form of marine plankton called Dinoflagellates.
Q: What do you think Ramona Kaulitzki's illustrations add to the story?
A: She did a stunning job. I love her art in general and was so excited to hear she wanted to work on this project. Her illustrations bring absolute magic to the story. They’re gorgeous. And the cover, it just makes me smile.
Q: What first interested you in creating children's picture books?
A: I got started when my oldest daughter came home with a small paragraph from school about a man named Benjamin Banneker. After doing my own research, I discovered that he built a strike clock using only a pocket watch and a pocket-knife. That story resulted in my first picture book Ticktock Banneker’s Clock.
I’ve found my niche, as they say, and I can’t think of a better way to share my love of fascinating stories with children.
Q: What are you working on now?
A: I’m working on several projects! One is about Ida Lewis, the Lighthouse Keeper of Lime Rock, and the other is the story of married couple William and Ellen Craft, and their dramatic escape from slavery. I’ve also just completed and co-wrote a nonfiction spy story with the amazing Heidi E.Y. Stemple.
Q: Anything else we should know?
A: I have lived in too many places to keep track of, but I still (and probably always will) love to travel. I can be social, but also a very content homebody, especially during football season. I’m trying to learn how to play the guitar! When I wrote Fly, Firefly! I lived less than 20 miles from Rachel Carson’s home in Springdale, Pennsylvania.
One of my favorite quotes to live by: "One child, one teacher, one book, and one pen, can change the world." ― Malala Yousafzai
Tuesday, February 25, 2020
Q&A with Shana Keller
Shana Keller is the author of the new children's picture book Bread for Words: A Frederick Douglass Story. She also has written the picture books Ticktock Banneker's Clock and Fly, Firefly!. She lives in North Carolina.
Q: Why did you decide to focus your new picture book on how Frederick Douglass learned to read?
A: When I read through an old biography about Frederick Douglass, I realized the amount of effort it took for him to learn how to read and write is one many children can relate to. So I thought it would be neat to share how one of the greatest orators and activists of all time learned.
Q: How did you research the book, and did you learn anything that especially surprised you?
A: I started reading a biography about Douglass written by William S. McFeely. From there, I went back to the actual autobiographies Douglass wrote himself. Then, I read even more books, including children’s books, about Douglass. A few mentioned, but none focused solely on, this great achievement of his.
As the story developed, I took a trip to Baltimore and met with an amazing docent named Bradley. He works with the Frederick Douglass-Isaac Myers Maritime Park & Museum. He answered many of my questions and gave me a tour of the museum (which I highly recommend).
Q: What do you think Kayla Stark's illustrations add to the book?
A: I am so glad Kayla wanted to work on this project! Her style, from my perspective, puts everyone on equal footing. Despite the heavy topic of slavery and enslavement, there’s an optimism in her drawings and an underlying sense of togetherness I see in the children in the story. It’s very inspirational!
Q: What do you hope kids take away from the book?
A: That despite some of the worst odds on the planet, people can succeed. I hope children get a sense from this story that our power comes from our own ingenuity. Where there’s a will, there is a way.
Q: What are you working on now?
A: Multiple historic picture books with a focus on African American history.
Q: Anything else we should know?
A: If teachers or parents want to demonstrate and connect how Douglass learned—they can show their students four letters from a foreign language (one they aren’t familiar with). Have them trace those letters as Douglass did, and keep track of the time to see how long it takes them to memorize all four.
For fun, you can ask them how long they think it would take to learn the entire alphabet.
--Interview with Deborah Kalb
Do You Know Them? Families Lost and Found after the Civil War.
By Shana Keller. Illus. by Laura Freeman.
Jan. 2024. 40p. Atheneum, $18.99 (9781665913072). K-Gr. 3.
After the Civil War, many formerly enslaved people were trying to find their relatives, who might have been sold and sent elsewhere before the war ended. In this touching story, young Lettie has learned to read with help from her uncle. She helps a seamstress with stitching and sweeps the floor in a neighborhood store, saving her pennies to buy a newspaper ad describing her family and asking strangers to help her find her relations. Every Sunday morning at church, she reads similar ads aloud to the congregation. One week, a man sends a letter thanking the paper for enabling him to find his family. Reassured, Lettie acts, purchasing her own ad. By some miracle, a woman later replies that she knows Lettie's kinfolk. An authors note confirms that the ads included within the narrative appeared in newspapers at the time. Minimally edited here, they are brief reminders of the cruelty of slavery, even after the war. Keller tells the story in a straightforward way, letting the poignant ads speak for themselves. Using beautiful patterns and rich, warm colors, often against white backgrounds, Freeman creates sympathetic fictional characters while expressing their emotions through their body language and their facial expressions. A simply written, moving picture book. --Carolyn Phelan
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2023 American Library Association
http://www.ala.org/aboutala/offices/publishing/booklist/
Source Citation
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Phelan, Carolyn. "Do You Know Them? Families Lost and Found after the Civil War." Booklist, vol. 120, no. 7-8, 1 Dec. 2023, p. 128. Gale General OneFile, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A777512586/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=bookmark-ITOF&xid=1b649835. Accessed 15 Mar. 2024.
Keller, Shana DO YOU KNOW THEM? Atheneum (Children's None) $18.99 1, 9 ISBN: 9781665913072
A young Black girl goes in search of loved ones in the aftermath of the Civil War.
Not everyone at Lettie's church can read the newspaper, so after some practice, she volunteers to read aloud to the congregation advertisements placed by those seeking information about missing-in-action soldier spouses or parents, children, and siblings separated by the all-too-common travesties of enslavement. Lettie is inspired by these efforts to reconnect, especially by the success stories she reads, but she isn't fully aware of the monumental role she's playing in her community during this era of widespread displacement and confusion. As she learns how much these advertisements cost, "Indian head" pennies accumulate on the page, alongside emotive digital illustrations of Lettie working various jobs, attending church with her uncle, and saving up to place an advertisement about her mother, father, brothers, and sisters. Once she's eventually able to afford an ad, the wait for a response is long, but it does finally arrive--to the cheers of Lettie's whole church. This richly inspiring and informative picture book illuminates an oft-overlooked--but incredibly important--chapter of U.S. history. In the backmatter, Keller notes that while Lettie's story is fictional, the advertisements are all real; they're artfully incorporated into the narrative. Freeman's use of texture and color gives the story a vivid, almost three-dimensional feel.
A riveting lesson on Reconstruction. (Picture book. 5-8)
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2023 Kirkus Media LLC
http://www.kirkusreviews.com/
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"Keller, Shana: DO YOU KNOW THEM?" Kirkus Reviews, 15 Nov. 2023, p. NA. Gale General OneFile, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A772515423/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=bookmark-ITOF&xid=f8b15179. Accessed 15 Mar. 2024.
Keller, Shana THE PEACH PIT PARADE Sleeping Bear Press (Children's None) $17.99 4, 15 ISBN: 978-1-5341-1138-7
Polly, a young African American girl, finds a way to help her soldier father during World War I.
Readers may be familiar with scrap-metal campaigns and victory gardens as efforts to improve the health and well-being of military troops, but, as the astonishing archival photographs on the endpapers to this charming picture book make clear, the Allied Forces of World War I also needed peach pits--millions of them. When burned, peach pits produced the charcoal used as filters in soldiers' gas masks, protecting them against poison gas on battlefields. In portraying America's nationwide campaign to collect peach pits, Keller centers the story on Polly, who is desperate to do something to help her father overseas. She organizes her Girl Scout troop into a parade to collect peach pits. Lucas' bright illustrations depict loving middle-class Black families, a Black Scout troop, and a mostly Black community all eager to do their patriotic best for their country. While children of all races can imagine themselves taking on a similar role, Black children will see themselves as important agents of history. Race is not a focus of the text; it is only discussed in the author's note, which reveals that the Girl Scouts had Black members and troops by 1919; Keller fails to mention that the organization was racially segregated up until the 1950s, which is a missed opportunity to provide accurate context. (This book was reviewed digitally.)
Understated and lovely. (Historical fiction/picture book. 4-10)
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2022 Kirkus Media LLC
http://www.kirkusreviews.com/
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"Keller, Shana: THE PEACH PIT PARADE." Kirkus Reviews, 1 Mar. 2022, p. NA. Gale General OneFile, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A695027146/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=bookmark-ITOF&xid=13f35451. Accessed 15 Mar. 2024.
Bread for Words: A Frederick Douglass Story
Shana Keller, author
Kayla Stark, illustrator
Sleeping Bear Press
sleepingbearpress.com
9781534110014, $16.99
Christine Irvin
Reviewer
Frederick Douglass was born a slave. As such, he was not permitted to learn to read and write. But he learned anyway. His first teacher was Mrs. Auld, the wife of his new owner. When she taught her own son to read, she taught Frederick, too. When her husband forbade her to teach him anymore, he found other teachers. He was sent on many errands for his new owner. When he went, he took extra bread with him. If he saw hungry boys on the streets, he would offer them his bread in exchange for their help in learning to read. It took a long time, but he finally earned to read. With that knowledge, he was able to break the bonds of slavery and eventually become a free man. Author Shana Keller has included more information about Douglass' biography in the back of the book. (Ages 6-9)
Please Note: Illustration(s) are not available due to copyright restrictions.
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2020 Midwest Book Review
http://www.midwestbookreview.com/cbw/index.htm
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Irvin, Christine. "Bread for Words: A Frederick Douglass Story." Children's Bookwatch, Oct. 2020, p. NA. Gale General OneFile, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A642011166/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=bookmark-ITOF&xid=15154c43. Accessed 15 Mar. 2024.
Fly, Firefly! By Shana Keller. Illus. by Ramona Kaulitzki. Apr. 2020. 32p. Sleeping Bear, $16.99 (9781534110335). PreS-Gr. 1.
When a firefly is carried on a wind current over the beach and out to sea, he mistakes the sparkling ocean lights for other fireflies and dives toward them accidentally getting caught underwater. Fortunately, the narrator is wading nearby to fish the firefly out and set it free to fly back home to its family. It seems a missed opportunity that the story is told so very simplistically in somewhat pat and unevenly metered rhyming couplets and for such a young age that its readers won't yet be able to appreciate or comprehend its backstory (the tale was inspired by a Rachel Carson observation) or the back matter on bioluminescence, which is very informative. But despite the flawed storytelling, the artwork is quite lovely in its soft, sweeping swirls of wind and water. The close-ups of the firefly give it a wonderful sense of emotion, and it's terrific that the story deviates from its origin to be retold featuring people of color.--Becca Worthington
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2020 American Library Association
http://www.ala.org/aboutala/offices/publishing/booklist/
Source Citation
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MLA 9th Edition APA 7th Edition Chicago 17th Edition Harvard
Worthington, Becca. "Fly, Firefly." Booklist, vol. 116, no. 16, 15 Apr. 2020, p. 52. Gale General OneFile, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A623790388/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=bookmark-ITOF&xid=df4fed71. Accessed 15 Mar. 2024.
Ticktock Banneker's Clock
Shana Keller, author
David C. Gardner, illustraotr
Sleeping Bear Press
315 East Eisenhower Parkway, Suite 200, Ann Arbor, MI 48108
www.sleepingbearpress.com
9781585369560, $16.99, HC, 32pp, www.amazon.com
Throughout his life, Benjamin Banneker was known and admired for his work in science, mathematics, and astronomy, just to name a few pursuits. But even when he was born in Maryland in 1731, he was already an extraordinary person for that time period. He was born free at a time in America when most African Americans were slaves. Though he only briefly attended school and was largely self-taught, at a young age Benjamin displayed a keen aptitude for mathematics and science. Inspired by a pocket watch he had seen, at the age of 22 he built a strike clock based on his own drawings and using a pocket-knife. This picture book biography focuses on one episode in a remarkable life. Deftly written by Shana Keller and beautifully illustrated by David C. Gardner for children ages 9 to 12, "Ticktock Banneker's Clock" will prove to be an enduringly popular addition to family, elementary school and community library picture book collections for young readers. It should be noted that "Ticktock Banneker's Clock" is also available in a Kindle format ($10.41).
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2016 Midwest Book Review
http://www.midwestbookreview.com/cbw/index.htm
Source Citation
Source Citation
MLA 9th Edition APA 7th Edition Chicago 17th Edition Harvard
"Ticktock Banneker's Clock." Children's Bookwatch, Nov. 2016. Gale General OneFile, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A472474740/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=bookmark-ITOF&xid=24e2c6fe. Accessed 15 Mar. 2024.