Inventing the Wheel: Behind the Scenes of THE MANY FORTUNES OF MAYA, a guest post by Nicole D. Collier, Ph.D.

Most people who meet me now would never guess it, but I was an angry child. Not all the time. Not to everyone. But something about the relationships between me and Daddy and me and Mama led to occasional meltdowns, screaming, and general bad behavior on my part.

I was a Daddy’s girl and Daddy could do no wrong in my eyes.  So when the day came that my parents announced a trial separation, I immediately knew who to blame. Mama, of course.

When I set out to write the story that would eventually become MAYA, that moment, the anger, disappointment and all the attendant messiness, served as my inspiration.

“I look over at Mama and feel heat rising, overwhelming my sadness. I know in my bones this is all her fault.” ~Maya

Notoriously, mother-daughter relationships can be fraught. I sought to explore this tension: viewing a person you love as the central cause of your discontent, yet grudgingly opening the door to understanding and forgiveness.

Maya has a thing or two she can learn from Mama, and indeed, she wants to, but a healthy dose of skepticism and spite keep her locked in a spiral of anger and grief.

Tweens crave to be seen, heard and understood, but they don’t always have the language or feel safe enough to express themselves. Instead, they may keep their worries locked inside, bundled together as the Deep Downs. As Maya explains, the Deep Downs are the secret questions, thoughts and heavy feelings “we’re too embarrassed or scared to tell anyone else.” These very secrets are so often the fuel for further misunderstandings.

Reflecting on our tween years, most adults could probably craft a long list of Deep Downs. This is the stuff of locked diaries and whispered conversations between best friends. These are the questions we didn’t want to ask, but we genuinely wished the answers would arrive as easily as opening a fortune cookie.

“Yeah, we need to be better at sharing our Deep Downs. All three of us.” ~Daddy

Not only does Maya have Deep Downs, her parents have them as well. In fact, it’s her parents’ buried regrets bubbling up to the surface that cause the family rift. Their unresolved and unexamined feelings about the past profoundly impact Maya’s life in the present. She wants to know why her mom seems disenchanted with Daddy and with her, too.

Eavesdropping on whispered arguments, Maya is left with ever more questions. Later, when she finally catches a glimpse of Mama’s long missing smile, she wonders if it’s possible for the three of them to ever be happy together.

Adults are sometimes guilty of telling kids, “you’ll understand when you get older.” And while that may be true, it doesn’t quiet the Deep Downs. As an introverted only child, I found solace and answers in books. I especially cherished books that told the truth on the page. Even if the circumstances differed from mine, I recognized the honest grappling. The perspectives from fictional families helped explain my own.

Maya finds the answers she seeks in two places. One of those is with a caring adult. Rather than an adventure, where adults can sometimes recede from the storyline, this story highlights complicated family dynamics and the ways grown-ups can show up and offer gentle support. In this case, Daddy’s twin brother, Uncle J, is Maya’s greatest champion. It’s a blessing and a curse, having someone who looks and sounds just like Daddy, but isn’t. Uncle J lends a listening ear and encourages her to tune in to her own voice.

Where else does she find answers? Her treasured Wheel of Fortunes.

“I go to the Wheel for advice. What does it all mean? What should I do? I spin, spin, spin and watch as it comes to a stop.” ~Maya

Maya and Mama create a Wheel of Fortunes when Maya is much younger. It’s a cardboard circle mounted on the wall, crammed with fortunes from fortune cookies. It begins innocently enough as a fun art project, but eventually Maya comes to rely on it as part fortune teller and part good luck charm. It’s Dear Abby and fairy godmother, all at once.

Maya attempts to both control and make sense of her life through spins of the Wheel. Even deciding whether to hold on to the anger against Mama, or bond with her to learn something new, is filtered through the wisdom of the Wheel.

As a young girl, my mother created a rainy day box for me. It was a long slim rectangular cardboard box that fit neatly under my bed. Inside it was packed with cotton balls, cotton swabs, pipe cleaners, construction paper, scissors, rubber cement and Elmer’s glue and tape, felt, yarn, Styrofoam peanuts, rulers of all sizes, and anything else you can think of. True to its name, on rainy days, when I had exhausted all of my books, I pulled out the box and created something new.

Looking back, the rainy day box served as concrete evidence my mother loved and understood me, even if at moments I didn’t quite believe it. The echo of this experience found its way into Mama and Maya creating the Wheel of Fortunes together. Despite their tension, Mama loves and understands Maya, and they have this enduring artifact that connects them every day.

“There’s a whole world out there, Maya. I want you to live it.” ~Mama

The fortunes that start each chapter and shed light on Maya’s moment to moment challenges were real fortunes I collected as an adult, although at the time, I had no idea they would end up in this book. The more I got to know Maya and her story, the more I understood that the fortunes belonged to her.

Similarly, the more Maya explored those Deep Downs and learned to listen to her own voice, the more she understood that the best fortunes are the ones she writes for herself.

Meet the author

Nicole D. Collier, Ph.D. is the author of Just Right Jillian and The Many Fortunes of Maya, middle-grade novels that illuminate the challenges and rewards that come from learning to be true to yourself. The daughter of a school librarian, Nicole is a former 4^th grade teacher turned executive coach. She’s been known to turn cartwheels on sunny days.

www.nicoledcollier.com

www.twitter.com/essentialcoco

www.instagram.com/essentialcoco

About The Many Fortunes of Maya

In this lyrical novel that will appeal to fans of Meg Medina, Maya turns to her trusty “wheel of fortunes” for guidance on the toughest questions—like why her best friend suddenly feels far away, or when her Daddy will move back home. But can Maya find the courage to write her own fortune? 

Maya J. Jenkins is bursting with questions:

• Will she get the MVP award at this year’s soccer banquet?
• Who will win the big grill off between Daddy and Uncle J?
• When will she pass the swim test and get a green bracelet?

For answers and a dose of good luck, 12-year-old Maya turns to her Wheel of Fortunes, a cardboard circle covered with the small slips of wisdom she’s collected from fortune cookies.

But can the fortunes answer her deep-down questions? The ones she’s too scared to ask out loud? Like, where did Mama’s smile go, the real one that lit up everything around her? When will Daddy move back home? And most of all, does she have enough courage to truly listen to the voice in her heart?

ISBN-13: 9780358434641
Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
Publication date: 01/24/2023
Age Range: 8 – 12 Years

Filed under: Guest Post