The Empowerteen Children's Storybook
...written by kids, for kids, and helps kids attend Empowerteen!
Over seven years in the making, this children's storybook was brainstormed and written by a group of thirteen tweens (ages 11-13) at the Empowerteen Tween Retreat in 2017; it has now been illustrated by one of our talented Empowerteen College Interns, Annie Berry, and is published by Empowerteen!
This delightful story helps children ages 5-7 develop social-emotional skills to:
- navigate friendships
- resolve conflicts
- discover the importance of values
- practice empathy
- give and gain gratitude
Plus, proceeds from every purchase is a donation to send teens to attend the Empowerteen program's classes, workshops, and events, making it "the best gift ever" that keeps on giving!
It fosters important life lessons that teens and tweens learn about in the Empowerteen program. A bit of each of their own story is in this book, too.
Great gift for spreading empowerment and saying "thank you" to those who influence young lives!
- parents and grandparents to read to young children
- teachers for group reading, perfect for any SEL curriculum
- your pediatrician or dentist to have in their waiting room
- your hairdresser to keep kids busy while giving hair-cuts
The Story Behind the Story:
The tweens did a great job of brainstorming, contributing, and putting together this book. We read children’s books to get ourselves in the mindset and had those attending who had siblings between the ages of 5-7 be our ‘age-appropriate check-in’. "Is this something your sister/brother would like?" We did activities such as a game where we picked out of a stack of notecards we made that had gift-giving traditions from different cultures all over the world. They had to find someone else with a card whose tradition was similar to theirs. Then we tried to categorize them, and use funny examples of a gift gone wrong. This activity gave the tweens the opportunity to see how cultural traditions and personal values differ all over the world, while there are still similarities as well, and many other factors to consider unique to each person and their background. We also played games to demonstrate how easily miscommunications can happen between people, and how that can lead to conflict.
We did some character development games with animal cards, as well, where they each were a different animal and had to write down, and later share, their continuation of these lines: “When you look at me, you probably think…” followed by, “But, what you might not realize is…”.
They did an amazing job of using empathy to help each other see past initial impressions or judgements. We then did a round of the same statements, but about how they move, then again on what they sound like. We cried we laughed so hard!
We shared our homework assignments out loud where they each had to write down a story of when they were younger and things didn’t go their way at a birthday party, or they didn’t get the gift that they wanted. We collected these stories, broke them down into parts, and put the parts into categories so we could use a central theme that represented what everybody shared about their lives in the children’s storybook. The birthday cake came up in almost everyone’s personal story, so it was a must to add a birthday cake tragedy to the book we did together. 🙂
The tweens worked hard on fun details, like character looks, names and page layout. The thing that was most frustrating for the tweens was not using pronouns as we were brainstorming. It was quite difficult, but it was a great lesson in and of itself and sparked a lot of conversation about how best to be inclusive of all kids and think of everyone as a person, not a label, which was a perfect extension of the “letting go of labels” lesson from the beginners retreat. We wanted every kid who picks up this book to see themselves reflected in it and feel like it applies to them, regardless of who they are or where they come from.
Each tween contributed to the collage shown in the book during an activity about relieving stress and anxiety using art therapy, lead by our fine Arts Teacher, Molly Kaplan. The image of the dandelion was made with a combination of acrylic, pastels, colored pencil and magazine collage panels. The dandelion is the mascot of Empowerteen, reflected in our "E" logo. It represents Empowerteen's mission that the program help teens strengthen their own identity and resilience so that when the time comes, and the wind blows, wherever that wind takes them and wherever they land, they will have tools to lead healthy happy lives as they plant in new ground and eventually sprout new seeds to spread the habits of: health, gratitude, love, empathy, and kindness.
The final part, the ‘3 ways to practice empathy’, was the biggest “Aha!” moment of the entire retreat, and was finished on the final day. They were having trouble coming up with an easy way to tell a 5 year old to use empathy. They had trouble simplifying it as a concept and kept getting too complicated. It was noon on the last day, the book had just been finished, they were hungry for lunch, super antsy and just plain "over it", and they almost gave up entirely. Dr. Paula gave them a speech about how nothing that is great is easy to do. That great authors, musicians, artists, and songwriters might feel like giving up when they can’t think to the next place, and that it’s just too hard and they won’t come up with anything… but those that push past that point and have confidence in themselves, believing they will figure it out, eventually do figure it out and the hard work all pays off. Resilience, persistence and perseverance are important!
"They pushed on, past their comfort zone, and I couldn’t be prouder of them, what we ended up with and how well it fit. It was the perfect conclusion to a week well spent learning about empathy, personal values, conflict, holistic health and growing together. I’m so excited for our future generations!" -Dr. Paula
Full list of authors and book contributors:
-TWEENS-
- Mariah Acosta-Madrigal 12 y/o
- Corinne Crabill 13 y/o
- Annie Doherty 12 y/o
- Claire Johnston 12 y/o
- Sonja Jugo 12 y/o
- Emily Kobor 12 y/o
- Kate Lienhart 13 y/o
- Natalee Mackin 12 y/o
- Madeline Myers-Turbitt 12 y/o
- Emilie Suri 12 y/o
- Lincoln Vizzini 13 y/o
- Maggie Zaszewski 12 y/o
- L.C. 11 y/o
-VOLUNTEERS-
- Dr. Paula Pilcher (Founder, Director, Physician, Teacher)
- Lauren Clemson (Events College Student Intern)
- Jasmine Olalde (3rd year Mentor and Intern)
- Raquel LeMire (1st year Big Sib Mentor)
- Molly Kaplan (Fine Arts Teacher)
-ILLUSTRATOR-
- Annie Berry (Illustration College Student Intern)
IG: @annieberrydesigns (hire her here for work!)
Published by: Empowerteen™