As a writer for Addison-Wesley’s K-3 reading series (for children aged kindergarten to 3rd grade), I worked under the guidance of Pleasant T. Rowland, author of the Addison Wesley Reading Series and founder of the American Girls Collection. Some of the books I worked on were The Superkids, The Dictopedia, and The Nitty Gritty City. One year, I wrote more than 400 pages for a third-grade workbook.

It’s a fun challenge to write stories that young kids can sound out themselves because they’re “phonetically decodable” (words like bat, cat and sat). For a few years, I thought and dreamed in phonics! I liked writing early reader books for the same reason I enjoy coming up with a paper bag skit: you’re stuck with a limited number of choices so you need to be creative.