When we last checked in with Mr. Harlan’s fifth-graders at Brentano Math and Science Academy in Logan Square back in December, they were putting the finishing touches on the monster stories they’d been working on all semester under the editorial guidance of volunteers from 826CHI, a nonprofit writing and tutoring center in Wicker Park. Now they, and a few fourth-graders, are published authors who will be making their public debuts at the Printers Row Book Festival, reading from the new anthology of their stories, The Monster Gasped, OMG!
The students handed in their final manuscripts just before Christmas. Since then, Humber thinks many of them have forgotten that they were working on a book and are a little confused about what’s happening. “The stories were all written by hand and the last time they saw them, they were in a Google Doc,” she says. “We did bring in some of our other books, and that helped crystallize what was happening. They got to see [other students’] names in the bylines.” Photographer Jasmin Shah took author photos of the students; each one, as well as the illustrators and the teacher, Mr. Harlan, contributed a brief author bio. (A surprising number of the students want to be YouTubers when they grow up, Humber reports.)
