Renata stiefel biography for kids

by Chana Stiefel & Picture the Books Friends

Recently, I was listening to a podcast when the interviewer asked, “When was the first time you saw yourself in a story?” And I thought to myself: NEVER! I’ve never seen myself in a character in a book. And isn’t that one of the main purposes of our writing: for kids to see themselves in books and to learn and grow from the experience?

Looking back to my childhood, it’s possible that I saw myself in books by Judy Blume. And maybe little Sal collecting blueberries in Robert McCloskey’s classic picture book is me.

But the question got me thinking: How can we as authors create characters or tackle subjects so that our audience can see themselves and be inspired? The answer: Start with yourself. Write your truth. Write the stories inside you that no one else can tell.

When I wrote the picture book MY NAME IS WAKAWAKALOCH (illustrated by Mary Sullivan, HMH), I channeled all of my feelings of growing up with a hard-to-pronounce name. I used to get so frustrated when people mangled my name and called me Shayna, China, and Kahana. Plus, I could never find my name on a T-shirt. But I reflected on the power and kindness of my namesake, my great-grandmother Chana, and the Hebrew translation of my name, which means “charm” or “grace.” Now I wear my name proudly and hope that other kids with hard-to-pronounce names will too.

Recently, I dug even deeper. For the first time in my year writing career, I have two Jewish-themed books coming out. This coming fall, THE TOWER OF LIFE (illus. by Susan Gal) will be published by Scholastic. It’s the true story of Yaffa Eliach, a Jewish historian and Holocaust survivor who traveled the world for 17 years to rebuild her town in stories and photographs, creating the Tower of Faces in the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum. Tragically, like Yaffa’s family, my mother’s family was decimated during t

Nick Spittal

Chief Operations Officer

Nick joined the Velocity leadership team in with over two decades in a broad range of clinical development and business operations roles at global CROs. As COO, Nick leads operational excellence throughout Velocity's project management, patient recruitment, and site operations, seeking to make clinical trials accessible to diverse groups worldwide. He believes that, “Velocity is uniquely positioned to address the recurring shortfall in clinical trial enrollment. Velocity’s global scale, integrated technologies, and highly skilled employees find innovative means to recruit and retain diverse clinical trial patients.”

Prior to joining Velocity, Nick served as Executive Vice President and General Manager of Neuroscience at Syneos Health, where he spearheaded global operations and strategy for clinical trial execution, and also served on the corporate council for diversity, equity, and inclusion. He has previously led project management, study startup, vendor management, proposals, and marketing functions in life sciences companies, overseen numerous systems and technology implementations, and guided multiple post-merger integrations. Nick was a long-serving co-chair and member of the executive steering group for the PharmaTimes Clinical Researcher of the Year competition and he is co-author on the book “Rare Disease Drug Development: Clinical, Scientific, Patient, and Caregiver Perspectives”, published in

Outside of work, you’ll likely find Nick… outside. Be it blasting along a flowy mountain bike trail, paddling across a warm Carolina lake, hiking through the Blue Ridge mountains, or taking on some new DIY construction project around the house, he is always on the move. Nick will break from his outdoor adventures to join his wife and four kids at the arena to root on the hometown Carolina Hurricanes.

by Chana Stiefel

Hello Storystormers! It’s hard to believe we’re already three weeks in. How’s it going? Are you churning out ideas like this?

If not, I’d like to jumpstart your idea machine by training your brain to ask a single question:

Where did that come from?

As you go about your day, start thinking about origin stories. Your fluffy slippers, your toothbrush, toilet paper, jeans, Cap’n Crunch, a nest in a tree on your first walk of the day….just look around. Origin stories are everywhere!

They might revolve around something very small.

Or something HUMONGOUS.

They might be about something incredibly important.

Or inventions that made a big splash!

They might even be about something we cherish.

My next picture book LET LIBERTY RISE (illustrated by Chuck Groenink, Scholastic, March 2) is the origin story of one of America’s favorite icons, the Statue of Liberty. Where did Lady Liberty come from? Most of us know she was a gift from France. But did you know that when she arrived in New York City in pieces, America didn’t want her? Americans were supposed to build the pedestal for Liberty to stand on, but when she arrived, the pedestal was only half built and funds had run out. Liberty’s parts, from her torch to her toes, lay strewn about Bedloe’s Island in rain and snow. But Joseph Pulitzer, a Jewish Hungarian immigrant and publisher of the New York World newspaper, felt that Liberty must stand in New York harbor. He said, if anyone gives a penny for the pedestal, he would print their name in his newspaper. And guess what? Schoolchildren came to the rescue by donating their pennies! The World raised $, to build Liberty’s pedestal! How’s that for an origin story?

Here’s another story that’s near and dear to my heart. A few years ago, I read an obituary about Yaffa Eliach, a Jewish historian who spent 17 years traveling the world

Clique aqui para Português

The “blackiteracy” project Rê Tinta was created to promote literacy among black children in Rio de Janeiro and help teach their classmates to be anti-racist. It all started through a comic strip, but is growing into a social policy that offers books by black authors and reading circles to the little ones.

“Blackiteracy”, or afrobetização in Portuguese, involves pairing literacy and anti-racist education in early childhood. The term, which has been gaining ground in the last decade, is based on the principle that no one is born racist. For this reason, it understands the importance of empowering children to reduce the harms caused by structural racism.

Representation

Father of six-year-old twins, both black with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD), Estevão Ribeiro decided to act against the lack of representation of black children in children’s books and comics. Fatherhood led Ribeiro, 43, to create Renata Tinta—Rê Tinta to fans, and also a play on words in Portuguese denoting dark skin and black pride—in The anti-racist comics empower children and adults and teach blackiteracy through social critiques that reflect on structural racism. And they’ve even become published books: Rê Tinta: I’m Black, Therefore I Resist and Rê Tinta and the Jamun Tree.

Born and raised in peripheral neighborhoods in the state of Espírito Santo’s capital, Vitória, Ribeiro moved to other vulnerable areas when he moved to Rio de Janeiro. Currently a resident of the outskirts of Niterói, Rio de Janeiro&#;s sister city across Guanabara Bay, he’s lived in the neighborhoods of Beltrão, in Fonseca, and currently lives in Santa Rosa. Aside from race-related themes, Ribeiro weaves in others such as religion, fatherhood and motherhood, politics, and ancestry into his work, from a black perspective. Rê Tinta has already reached nearly 15, followers on Instagram.

“Education is also part of our job. We have to share our knowledge, as many of our elders