How to Put Together an Anthology of Super Stories for Readers Who Live in Middle School: A Play, a guest post by Leah Henderson and Gary D. Schmidt

Scene:  We are at a Literary Conference for Writers, Teachers, Librarians—and All Lovers of Books for Young Readers.  It is dinnertime, and the many conferees have gathered after a long day of sessions for an hour of relaxation and refreshment.  The room is huge, the walls are sort of beige, the carpet is sort of dark, the lighting is sort of industrial, the art on the walls is generated by machines with no taste.  Dinner is being served to something like a million and a half people.  Everyone is hungry.

LEAH and GARY are sitting at a large round table.  GARY is holding LEAH’s newest book on his lap—One Shadow on the Wall—and he is eager to have her sign it!  They do not know each other—yet. 

A very nice person with a very nice smile puts plates on the table.  LEAH leans over to GARY.

LEAH:            What do you think this is?

GARY:            Probably chicken.  When they serve meals for a bezillion people, all at the same

time, it’s probably chicken.

LEAH:            And this?

GARY:            Pasta.  I think.  It’s the same principle:  A bezillion meals always have pasta.

LEAH:            Okay.  Chicken and pasta.  And broccoli, right?

GARY:            I hate broccoli.  I hate Brussels sprouts, too.  And lima beans.  But broccoli is

                        the worst.

LEAH:            (After inspecting the broccoli carefully.)  I think it has bacon bits on it.  If I had a

superpower, it would be to eliminate bacon from the planet.

GARY:            The bacon is so the broccoli doesn’t taste like broccoli.  Will you sign my One

Shadow on the Wall?  That will put off the inevitable first bite.

LEAH signs One Shadow on the Wall and hands it back to GARY, who places it carefully in the backpack beneath his chair.  They both pick up their forks and look at what is probably chicken.  LEAH lifts the carcass a little bit to see if there is anything moving beneath it. 

GARY:            So, usually the punishment for finishing one book is that you have to be working on the next. 

GARY lifts up his carcass a little bit, too.  He doesn’t see anything moving beneath it.

LEAH:            (Nods.)  This one is going to be shorter and it’s going to be a fantasy and it’s

                        going to be set in the Harlem Renaissance and it’s going to have magic in it. 

What’s your punishment?

GARY:            A foster kid in New England is searching for his daughter who has been taken

away by Maine’s social services.  I think yours sounds a whole lot happier.

LEAH:            It really is a happy one. I just wish it was already done.

GARY:            If I had a superpower, it would be to make every dinner at every convention

magically transform into a cheesecake from the Nuns of New Skete.

LEAH:            Okay, I haven’t tried a cheesecake from the Nuns of New Skete.  But that must be some serious cheesecake. I’m not sure I’d devote my one superpower to cheesecake though. Maybe gelato, but not cheesecake.

GARY:            I don’t know about that.  Once you’ve tasted their lemon cheesecake . . .

LEAH:            Nope, I’m sure about this one. 

GARY:            You were ready to give it up to get rid of bacon!

LEAH:            That’s a sacrifice for world health.

GARY:            Probably fair.  Still, those lemon cheesecakes . . .

LEAH lifts a forkful of what is probably chicken to her mouth, then lays it down.  She picks up the Parker House roll and butters it.

LEAH:            So, if you really could have one superpower, what would it be?

GARY:            Can I have something huge, like be the Bringer of World Peace?

LEAH:            No.  Not huge.  Something smaller, but important to you.

GARY:            Maybe add a couple of more hours to a day, if I wanted.

LEAH:            Okay.  But even more specific.

GARY:            I’d be wicked good at carpentry.  Or maybe this:  I’d have the power to resurrect old barns to their original state.  They’d even smell like they did when they were first built.  And I’d carve my name into some 10 x 10 beam somewhere high in the rafters so no one would see it but I would know it’s there.

LEAH:            Very cool, and very specific. I love little secrets that have the power to make you smile whenever you think of them.

GARY:            How about you? 

LEAH:            That’s easy. I’d have the ability to travel anywhere in the world simply by saying I want to go there. I’d be in Madagascar today and a beach in Sri Lanka tomorrow. But I know, I know, more specific. For an hour or two, I would love to meet groups of kids wherever I go, so they can teach me their favorite thing.

GARY:            Okay, here’s another option for me.  If I had one small superpower, it would be that I could make sure that in every school there would be an incredibly kind and smart librarian who knew exactly what book to give every single kid every single time—plus she’d be the person in town who found a home for every stray dog.

LEAH:            What about the cats?

GARY:            Don’t even care about the cats.

LEAH:            Okay.  I kind of want that superpower too, but I would include cats. Or any animal really that needs a safe and happy home. You know, this would make a super cool book?

GARY:            You’re right.  This would make a really fun book.

LEAH:           We’d have to find a bunch of really awesome writers to contribute stories.  And we’d start with . . .

LEAH and GARY (together):  Nikki!

GARY:            And they could all write about a middle school kid who has some minor

                        superpower.

LEAH:            Different tones.  Different situations.  Different genres maybe.  But all writing

                        about small superpowers.

GARY:            And we’d need something that really ties it together.  Something tied to the

                        superpower idea but even beyond it. 

LEAH:            You know, what we’re really talking about is empowerment—feeling like even the smallest parts of us have power and worth. That could be super important to a middle school kid.

GARY:            And what would it mean for a kid to feel empowered in her school, home, or

                        neighborhood?  How would that change them forever? 

LEAH takes out her napkin and a pen. 

GARY:            You know, this book would be a nightmare to put together.  We’d have to find all these writers, and work with all their agents, and get an editor on board.

LEAH:            And an illustrator.  We’d need an illustrator not just to picture the characters, but to somehow tie all the stories together.  Someone like . . .

LEAH and GARY (together):  Jarrett!

LEAH begins to scribble across the napkin.  GARY watches and nods.

A very nice person with a very nice smile approaches the table.

VERY NICE PERSON:  Did you not enjoy the tilapia?

LEAH and GARY look up. 

GARY:            We’re so sorry.  We got distracted.

LEAH:            We did finish the Parker House rolls though.

VERY NICE PERSON:  You must be writers.  Writers never finish their meals.  Something

always comes up and they’re off and running who knows where.    

GARY:            You’re so right! 

LEAH:             But isn’t it fun to find out where we might be going?

*Lots of bacon was consumed in the making of this play.

Meet the authors

Leah Henderson is the author of many critically acclaimed books for young readers, including The Magic in Changing Your Stars, The Courage of the Little Hummingbird, A Day for Rememberin’, and Together We March. She holds an MFA in writing and is on the faculty of Spalding University’s graduate writing program. Because she has serious wanderlust, when she isn’t creating stories, she’s off someplace in the world getting lost, then found, discovering new ones.

Gary D. Schmidt is the bestselling author of many novels for young readers, including the Newbery Honor Book The Wednesday Wars; National Book Award finalist Okay for Now; and the Newbery Honor and Printz Honor Book Lizzie Bright and the Buckminster Boy. He lives in a two-hundred-year-old house in Michigan, where he runs border collies in the fields and plants vegetable gardens by the barns—the first for fun, the second for the deer.

About A Little Bit Super: With Small Powers Come Big Problems

In these hilarious stories by some of the top authors of middle grade fiction today, each young character is coping with a minor superpower—while also discovering their power to change themselves and their community, find their voice, and celebrate what makes them unique.

The kids in these humorous short stories each have a minor superpower they’re learning to live with. One can shape-shift—but only part of her body, and only on Mondays. Another can always tell whether an avocado is perfectly ripe. One can even hear the thoughts of the animals in the pet store! But what these stories are really about is their young protagonists “owning” a power that contributes to their individuality, that allows them to find their place in the world, that shows them a potential they might not have imagined.

Because if you really think about it, we all have something special and unique about ourselves that makes us a little bit super. We all have the power to change as an individual, to change our communities for the better, to have a voice and to speak up. These playful, thought-provoking tales from some of today’s top middle grade authors prompt readers to consider what their own superpower might be, and how they can use it.

Written by Pablo Cartaya, Nikki Grimes, Leah Henderson, Jarrett Krosoczka, Remy Lai, Kyle Lukoff, Meg Medina, Daniel Nayeri, Linda Sue Park, Mitali Perkins, Pam Muñoz Ryan, Gary D. Schmidt, Brian Young, and Ibi Zoboi; coedited by Leah Henderson and Gary D. Schmidt.

ISBN-13: 9780358683421
Publisher: HarperCollins
Publication date: 04/23/2024
Age Range: 8 – 12 Years

Filed under: Guest Post