Stacey Kannenberg, affectionately known as the “Let’s Get Ready to Learn Mom,” is an author, publisher, motivator, consultant, spokesperson, and mom. Stacey is a nationally-renowned education expert and award-winning author with an expertise in children's education and “Mom-entrepreneurship.” She is the Founder/CEO of Cedar Valley Publishing and the co-author of the Let's Get Ready series. Come along on this amazing journey and learn more about Stacey’s accomplished career and how her writing talents help children get ready for school. Stacey’s books include “Let’s Get Ready For Kindergarten!” and “Let’s Get Ready For First Grade!” winner of the 2007 Teacher’s Choice Family Award by Learning Magazine. Pre-order the Spanish/English Bilingual Edition of “Let’s Get Ready For Kindergarten!” at http://www.cedarvalleypublishing.com.
It’s exhausting enough being a mom. How do you manage your multiple careers of author, publisher, motivator, consultant, and spokesperson, all the while maintaining a nurturing home life for your daughters?
I am so lucky because my kids are actively involved in all that I do. I mean who better to help me write my current book, Let’s Get Ready For Second Grade! than my own second grader and fourth grader? They are so empowered in the process. In fact when we are doing homework, they will often remind me to add a section on a particular subject to the second grade book or to our third grade or fourth grade outlines for future use. They like that our books are helping other families, and they often tell me that they plan to keep our books alive for many generations to come. They also help review products that are geared for kids and families in my consulting work for Mom Central Consulting. They have some of the best ideas because they are the intended target market and they sometimes see things that only children can see. Their input has been valuable to many brands, including Mom Central Consulting and our own Cedar Valley Publishing brand.
Please share with us the vision of Mom Central Consulting, especially for those not familiar with this organization.
Mom Central Consulting is thebrainchild of parenting expert and “Today Show” contributor, Stacy DeBroff. I subscribed to Mom Central when I became a parent and was a fan of Stacy’s, who is an award-winning author of four parenting books. After releasing my books, I emailed and asked if she would like to review them and she agreed. We become friends and it was she who crowned me the “Get Ready to Learn Mom” and recruited me to be a Mom Expert at Club Mom. She loved my books and was a great inspiration in helping me build my national educational platform. In January 2007, she asked if I would be interested in helping her build Mom Central Consulting—a place to help brands reach moms. I jumped at the chance to earn extra money to offset my printing costs for Cedar Valley Publishing. Our first client was PBS’s “Word World Show.” My job was to build a mom panel to review the show, submit feedback to the creators, and activate moms to host “Word World” viewing parties prior to their PBS launch date. Of course, my kids were excited because they fell in love with the show and couldn’t wait to share it with all their friends. We had over 15,000 moms host viewing parties and “Word World” was an instant success among families.! Today, Mom Central Consulting works with over 100 different brands and we are always looking for products that pass our vision test: will this make the world better for busy moms and their kids. We are always looking for families to test products at http://www.momcentral.com.
You are affectionately known as the “Get Ready to Learn Mom.” What or who inspired you to co-author the award-winning and state approved Let’s Get Ready series?
As I mentioned previously, it was Stacy DeBroff who affectionately gave me the title of “Let’s Get Ready to Learn Mom.”
The series was inspired by a series of “Oprah” shows. Oprah had a show called the “Walking
Buddy” where she told the audience to “call your tall, thin neighbor and get out there and start walking.” So I did. I never dreamed what a life-changing experience that was going to be.
Linda Desimowich had two girls ages five and three at the time, and my girls were three and one. She was volunteering in her daughter’s kindergarten class and started telling me about the new language of kindergarten. I was lost. She was talking about skip counting and positional, high frequency and sight words and how advanced kindergarten had become. I was trying to find a book and couldn’t find what I wanted.
Oprah was advertising her Big Dream Show and I said to Linda that I wished I had an idea for Oprah’s Big Dream Show. She exclaimed, “How about that kindergarten book you can’t find—one book for every grade that helps parents, kids, and teachers with each grade.” The minute she said it I knew that it was exactly what we were going to do. I dragged Linda kicking and screaming every step of the way and we became the Lucy and Ethel of self publishing. We never did submit our idea to Oprah’s Big Dream contest; instead we decided to just do it and Oprah had a show every step of the way to show us how. Oprah’s show on Successful Mom Entrepreneurs motivated us, and her show on Self Publishing showed us how, but it was her trip to Africa that changed our book into a global mission.
Please describe the collaboration process with co-author Linda Desimowich and illustrator Joyce Babel-Worth.
I wrote about 85% of the first draft of the kindergarten book and worked with Linda and our book consultant, Judy Bridges, to rewrite it and edit it into the book we have today. If you see the first draft and the last draft, we have completely different books. Without Judy Bridges, we would never have created a global appeal. We met with the amazing team of Joyce Babel-Worth for illustration and Dori Schmitz for design and they helped pull it all together. Those were some of the greatest days. Megan was just a toddler and would either sleep or watch during those fine tuning days at Judy Bridge’s RedBird Studio or with Joyce and Dori at Two Bit Productions. Once “Kindergarten” was released, I focused all my energy on selling and distribution, so Linda wrote about 85% of the first draft of the first grade book. We again worked on the editing process with Judy Bridges, Joyce Babel-Worth, and Dori Schmitz to reshape that first draft through hundreds of revisions to become the book it is today. The key to our success was our extensive revision process. Our books would change each and every day after we talked with parents, kids, and teachers to help us create something that would appeal to most parents, kids, and teachers. It was an amazing amount of work becoming the publisher, the author, the editor, the marketer, the public relations director, the media spokesperson, the distributor, and so on. In 2005, at Linda’s request, my husband and I purchased Cedar Valley Publishing and we continue to operate as a true family business.
In my own experience, I have found that when a child discovers a book they love, it practically becomes worn out. Please share with us the innovation of making the book series similar to a dry erase board.
Some of our favorite family memories include crawling into bed at night time and reading with our kids. Before I became an author, we would read about ten books each night. We loved the smaller books because sometimes the books were so big you could literally take out a child turning a page. I also remembered Oprah’s Trip to Africa and she was saying how she wanted books durable for children in huts. I wanted something durable so that families could pass them down to each child in the family. The experts always stress that we need to read to young children, yet it has always been difficult to find classic books in a format that a two-year-old will not destroy! Sadly, we had many accidents with ripped pages. We loved board books, but our favorite books would be so worn that the binding would start to tear, so I wanted to find something really, really durable. My first printer, Kyle from Pro Graphics, helped me with the recipe that I still use today. It’s a dry erase material that can be wiped after sticky fingers or baby drool has taken over. I have actually had some well-known publishing houses approach me and say that they would never spend the money on the type of material I use. I find that sad, because most moms rave about the durability of my books and wish more books would use the same material. For me, I wanted parents not to be afraid to hand them off to their 18-month-old and let them feel empowered and in control of the book. I am also proud that my books are 100% made and manufactured in Wisconsin!
Stacey, you are a well-known school presenter. Please share with us an enlightening encounter with a student that confirmed for you your mission of reaching out to as many children and their families as possible through the Let’s Get Ready series.
One of the most amazing encounters happened at Northern Ozaukee Elementary School, seven miles from my home. I met a little boy named Clayton who bounced up after our presentation and proudly proclaimed that he was going to be a “book writer” too someday. I loved that term, book writer; I had never heard it used that way before. He was the sweetest boy with huge eyes behind framed glasses and I believed that he would become a book writer someday. I told him that I believed in him and I wanted him to stay in touch and that I would gladly help him in any way. We shook hands on it as if to seal our deal. The hair on my arms stood up and I felt as if something great had just happened. Clayton had that kind of effect on people; he was just an amazing and memorable little boy. Later that day, I learned from Linda and the school librarian that Clayton was instrumental in helping develop a love for reading in his fellow classmates! What an amazing boy indeed.
Sadly, a few years later, Clayton was tragically killed crossing the street to get the mail. He was anxiously awaiting the final book in a trilogy to be delivered that day in the mail. After getting the mail and not seeing his book, he was so disappointed. With his head hanging down, he stepped in front of an on-coming car and was killed. This little boy loved to read so much that he died crossing the street for a book. It breaks my heart. I called the family and told them that I wanted Clayton to live forever and asked if he could be a character in our book Let’s Get Ready For Second Grade! We all knew that he would have been delighted. I enjoy sharing Clayton’s “book writer” story with others because in every school there are future “book writers” just like Clayton who are already writing a book in their journals or have already discovered the love for reading that both Clayton and I share! Clayton’s school has a new section in his library called “Clayton’s Corner” to promote some of Clayton’s favorite books to others, and his family collects books and sends them to needy schools across the country. Clayton is such an inspiration to me and I am so blessed that I was able to meet him!
What has been your funniest experience at a school presentation?
I was reading Let’s Get Ready For First Grade! to my daughter Heidi’s first grade class. It was my last revision before print, and this class had seen the book at different stages, so I was doing one final reading with them before I went to press the following week.
I was on the coins page when little Joe Barber raised his hand and said, “Mrs. Kannenberg, Mrs. Kannenberg, there is an error in your book. Eisenhower was on the dime in the ‘40s. Now it is Roosevelt.” I was speechless, he was absolutely correct! Joe went on, “My mom was a first grade teacher, you know.” In my mind I was thinking, I know Joe, and his mother, and about 300 teachers have all looked at this book, and we never caught that. Out loud, I said, “Oh my, Joe, thank you so much. You so saved me from printing without seeing that error. Thank you so much!”
Joe walked a bit taller after that, and every time I see him he always asks me if I need any editing done. I always take him up on it because you just never know what he will see!
What advice would you give to a parent of a child experiencing first day of school jitters?
Practice takes away those jitters, so I recommend visiting the school as often as you can before that first day. Get creative and make it fun! See if they will let you visit for a few hours or take lunch in the cafeteria to observe. Ask your new school if they can introduce you to some families that have children in your child’s classroom and invite them over for a “pre kindergarten play date party.” The bigger network your child has prior to that first day, the more at ease they will be. Over summer, play on the school playground, look in the windows, and drive by whenever you are going in that direction and say, “Look, here is your school. Should we practice walking up to the door to get ready for our big day in September?”
Most schools test children on the alphabet all mixed up, numbers 0-10 all mixed up, basic shapes, colors, and coins, counting objects to 10 and how far they can count to 100. Practicing with your child will make them ready for kindergarten assessments. The results are usually shared with parents at their first parent-teacher conference. So tell your child what they need to know for school. For example, “We need to practice mixing up the numbers 0 to 10 for kindergarten, so let’s mix them up and play!”
For our younger readership, what would you say to them about helping out a fellow student who may be nervous on the first day of school?
We can all help and make friends. If you have a friend who is nervous, go talk to your friend and together explore your new classroom. Or if you see a new student who looks like he or she does not know anyone in the classroom, you can go up and introduce yourself. Make friends and plan activities for everyone to be involved at recess time. Be polite, share, explore, learn, and have fun!
When developing storyline ideas for children’s books, do you seek out children and their parents for input?
Absolutely! The secret to the success of the Let’s Get Ready series is that we worked with parents, kids, teachers, homeschoolers, and educators all across the country. We worked so many of those great ideas into our series and if our kids weren’t engaged in a page we kept rewriting it until they were.
Where and how can our readership order your books?
You can search the titles of the books and find them online and with national and independent retailers across the country such as Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Borders, select Learning Express Stores, and at http://www.cedarvalleypublishing.com.
What current project are you working on?
I am currently working on Let’s Get Ready For Second Grade! and Let’s Get Ready For Preschool! for Cedar Valley Publishing and numerous brand consulting projects for Mom Central Consulting.
What career would you find yourself in if you were not a writer?
A book reviewer! I love to read. It’s my absolutely favorite thing in the world to do. It brings me so much joy. Happy Reading!
Stacey, thanks for taking the time out to be my first interview as Marketing Manager at SFC. It has been a pleasure.
To learn more about Stacey, visit her at:
http://www.cedarvalleypublishing.com
http://www.momcentral.com
http://www.momcentralconsulting.com
http://mother-talk.com/mothertalk/
Books by Stacey Kannenberg:
Award winning, state approved books that kids, parents, teachers and schools all love for getting ready for Kindergarten and First Grade! See more at http://www.cedarvalleypublishing.com