Ep. 2: From Homeschool to Public School

Episode Summary

Veera Hiranandani and Willa, age 10

3/19/2020

This week's episode features 10 year old Willa and her story seed about a girl who has to make the switch from homeschool to public school. Her author match: Veera Hiranandani, author of the 2019 Newbery Honor winning novel The Night Diary. Join host Betsy Bird on Veera and Willa’s realtime field trip at The Blue School in NYC, then hear Veera narrate the brand new original story that she grew from Willa's story seed, “Under The Maple Tree.” Click here for complete episode notes.

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This Episode Features

Willa, age 10

My Story Seed is ... about a girl and her mom who live in the middle of the woods in a small cottage. She's never gone to school but learned all her school subjects through her surroundings. Suddenly, they're beginning to lose money. Her mom needs to get a job and she needs to go to a real school and find a way to fit in.

My name means … Willow (like the tree)

If I had a billion dollars ... I would use the money to help kids at the border, kids who are hungry, or who don’t have any toys or books. And then I would work for climate change. And then if I had some money left over, I would buy a house by the lake in Michigan and a dog.

If I Met an Alien ... play them some music and I would give them a book.

My favorite authors are ... Sharon Draper, Jacqueline Kelly, and Homer

Veera Hiranandani

I really connected to Willa’s story seed because ... I could connect with her main character. When I was in fifth grade, I had to leave a very small private school with only 50 kids and move to a public school I saw that I could connect with the main character.

My name means … Brave

My favorite color is … red. I actually had a lucky red sweater when I was growing up, and I would always wear it when I wanted good things to happen.

Some of the books I’ve written are ... The Night Diary, The Whole Story of Half a Girl, and the chapter book series, "Phoebe G. Green."

Here’s a writing tip for you … When you start writing a story, give your character a name!

Bonus Episode

On this bonus episode, host Betsy Bird and Veera Hiranandani chat about the parallels between Veera's childhood school experiences and those of Willa's story seed. You’ll also get some writing tips from the Newbery Honor-winning author! Click here for episode notes and transcript.