By Kathy Brown
Bob Shea, a children’s book author who lives in Madison, did a lot of work with PBS kids, and once worked on a national literacy campaign that they were sponsoring. He thought people should do something similar on a local level, and decided to try it himself, so he called a principal in New Haven to ask about helping out. She didn’t return his calls, and when he finally reached her, she declined his offer. Bad news for New Haven was good news for Haddam. A mutual acquaintance heard the story, and put Bob in contact with Judy Nacca, who was working at Mauro-Sheridan Interdistrict Magnet School at the time. When Judy was hired at Haddam Elementary School as Literacy Coach, Bob became involved with the iWrite Club there through Judy.
Judy Nacca runs the after school iWrite Club, which was started in 2014 by Melissa Dorish as the Newspaper Club. “I changed the title so we could include all kinds of writing,” said Judy, “such as short stories and poetry.” There are currently 21 students in the club, primarily fourth grade students.
Bob Shea told Haddam News that he started writing stories when he was just a child, but “never realized it could be a job; it was too much fun!” Now he has many books to his credit such as Dinosaur vs. Bedtime, Unicorn Thinks He’s Pretty Great, and The Happiest Book Ever, among others. He visits the iWrite Club and inspires the young authors of Haddam. “I saw his books and how they were funny and had fancy words,” said Chloe, 4th grader at HES. “He inspired me. I want to be a writer like him.” Right now she is working on an article about fashion trends with students Ryleigh and Pierce, as well as a story about riding quads.
Bob enjoys his time with the students as well. “My experience at HES has been terrific,” he said. “The kids are great and everyone is so friendly and welcoming. They really pay attention and have fantastic ideas.”
Fourth grader Ryleigh said, “He gave me interesting ideas to put in my articles to make them stand out.” She also said that they learned writing techniques from Mr. Shea like “zooming in and out” which she further explained as “zooming in on one detail of a character” to highlight it. “He’s so exciting and fun to be learning from him,” she continued. “It’s cool that we get to see his books before they’re published.” She is working on an article entitled, “The Mystery of Mr. Snow’s Missing Material.”
Bob was full of praise for the club and the advisor, “Ms. Nacca is amazing. I wish I had such a supportive and encouraging teacher when I was in school. Maybe I would have had the courage to try writing a lot earlier. She really sees what is unique to each student and gives them the confidence to explore their natural creativity.” Judy has her Masters in Creative Writing as well as her Masters in Education, and her passion is poetry. “I love nurturing the love of literature in our young students!”
Bob Shea and last year’s iWrite Club collaborated on a story, CeCe and Jorge. The students wrote the story about perseverance, and Bob drew the illustrations. Ms. Nacca put it together on Snapfish.com so that the work could live on for future students to see. It is part of the collection of books in the HES Library.
Keep an eye out for what the future writers of Haddam will do!
