Hello, friends! Welcome back to GraceofStorytelling in 2021! I’ve started this year with a pretty optimistic mindset. I have an internship that keeps me busy, and I am really enjoying it. My semester at school is also going pretty well so far. I am grateful that my course load is a lot less demanding and stressful this semester. For the first time in my college career as an English major, I am not taking any literature course! This means I won’t be assigned any major literary

Today marks one week from November 28, 2020, the one-year anniversary of the death of Andrew Clements, a prolific children’s book author. Clements’s work was a staple of my elementary school years. I saw his books everywhere, but in the last few years, I’ve been surprised by how many people are unfamiliar with them. A few weeks ago I put a poll on my Instagram story asking: “Do you know the author Andrew Clements and his books?” and about half of the people who responded said

The quickest route to personal growth is access to education and written language, as they are tools for creating empowerment, agency, and purpose. This idea is supported by the theory and effects of two educational pedagogies: process pedagogy and expressivism. These pedagogies are applied and often intersect in middle grade fiction, a literary genre written for eight- to twelve-year-olds. This essay will examine three middle grade novels, their application of process pedago