​For this month’s blog, we interviewed the Pappafotis children, our author’s four children. If you recall from a previous blog, these stories began as bedtime stories that our author told to her children when they were little. All four, Nick, Megan, Christina, and Mike, are adults now. And they had a lot to share!
 
1. What Little Honey story do you remember from your childhood? Was it your favorite? Why or why not?
Nick:
The Rock Story and the cherry pit in the nose story (not yet committed to posterity) because they were action packed and weird, respectively. My favorite ones, though, are The Baseball Story and The Beach Story because they are encouraging and funny respectively.
Megan:
I remember all the Little Honey stories - even ones that haven't been published yet (and some that never will be)! I do not have a favorite because these ARE my favorite stories from childhood. Stories we didn't like were simply not told again. The Little Honey stories were requested over and over, night after night. I loved hearing about Mom's childhood, imagining when she was a kid and the people we were familiar with as younger versions of themselves; acting as a mom instead of a grandma or as a sibling instead of an aunt/uncle. I also felt connected with the people that weren't around or that we didn't see everyday.
Christina:
It’s impossible for me to pick just one favorite so I’ll go with the most memorable which is The Icing Story. As a kid I loved hearing my mom describe how good that icing was and how much she loved icing because I also love(d) icing. However, it probably inspired my own icing story as a kid when I licked all the icing from the cinnamon rolls before my brother woke up and have some. I can distinctly remember thinking “this is okay because mommy did it”. 
Mike:
The Little Honey story that I remember the most is the story about the rock incident. Little Honey was playing with the neighborhood kids and they were throwing rocks at her, and one of them hit her in the head that caused an injury. I always remember this one because it actually helped me not to bully other kids in school, or any other place/situation. In fact, it helped me stand up for kids OR adults who are being bullied. So, never will I throw rocks at kids (just kidding).
 
2. How do you feel the Little Honey stories have changed now that they are written, illustrated, and published? 
Nick:
Well, they were never called the little honey stories when I was a kid; they were mommy's stories. These were not characters, they were actual people that I knew and loved. So each one was personal in a way that is hard to replicate for me in a book.
Megan:
Since these stories were told so many times, it didn't shock me to read a slightly altered version as the final product. Adding the illustrations though, made me feel like I was experiencing the stories for the first time! I had everything pictured in my head, from my mind, as a child. To see someone else's interpretation was amazing and a little surreal. 
Christina:
My mom and I just spoke recently about how the stories feel a bit different being written down. To state the obvious, there is definitely a difference from someone telling you a story from memory versus reading one from a book. Especially when it’s my mom as the storyteller. The books are very straightforward stories where when my mom would tell them she would take detours and add details. We could also interact with them by asking questions and my mom would be sure to add those details. Also there weren’t lessons at the end of the stories that probably had to be added given the example from above!  
Mike:
The biggest change would be the obvious; that you were able to transform real life stories from your childhood into these fantastic children books.  I wouldn't say the content has changed much (which is the most important), but the names and illustrations have, which is just the natural progression of any short story. 
 
3. Is there anything else you wish to share about the Little Honey stories?
Nick:
What I loved most about my mom's stories was that even at the end, when she had to leave and I had to go to sleep, I could replay the stories in my head, I could hear her voice, and it was like she was still there.  And that made the night a little less dark.
Megan:
I could talk about the Little Honey Stories all day. Just today, our PreK teacher read The Beach Story and a little girl in the class said, "Hey, I have that book at my house!"  I love that.  I love sharing a bit of my childhood by sharing a bit of my mother's childhood and having that be part of someone else's childhood.  
Christina:
The little honey stories are just so special. They connect you to a person who is one of a kind. As a kid I never thought much about why I loved hearing these stories I just knew I loved them and my mom would keep telling them as long as we asked. Looking back I think it was because it made me feel connected to my mom. My mom is such an incredible woman so I’m so happy to see that so many others will get to connect with her (including my children and eventually their children). 
Mike:
I would like to see some of the books begin with how the stories came about and even mention that these were told to your children. That's something that I will always remember.
 
 

In the Rock Story, Little Honey and Angel see some teenagers in the neighborhood throwing rocks at each other and that upsets Little Honey. This behavior is clearly wrong to her and she decides to take action despite being much younger and smaller than the children engaged in the activity. Little Honey ends up getting hurt when a rock inadvertently hits her in the forehead. But somehow her actions and her subsequent injury put an end to the offensive behavior.
 
Should Little Honey have taken that risk? There is not really a clear answer. The type of behavior that she witnessed was potentially a battle for social domination among the older children in her neighborhood. Little Honey was not a part of that battle. But Little Honey had learned from her parents - our parents - the importance of standing up for what you believe in. Our father had been a civil rights activist in the 60s and our mother fought for Baltimore’s neighborhoods.
 
A different response, one that is common, would be to just look away and ignore the problem. We may hope it will go away on it’s own or someone else will take care of it. However, we are beginning to realize that children’s voices can be a seed for change. At only 11, Malala Yousafzai began her campaign to improve educational opportunities for girls after the Taliban prohibited her education. As a result of speaking out against this, Malala became a target and was shot. But even that didn’t stop her from continuing to speak out and, perhaps in part due to her courage, the Taliban’s hard line position on limiting the education of girls has softened somewhat.
 
After 9/11, Homeland Security adopted their “See Something Say Something” campaign to encourage the reporting of suspicious activity. This supports the concept of speaking out whenever you see something wrong. Research has found that, at least in the transportation industry, this policy appears to have been quite effective.
 
Is this also effective when standing up to bullies and bullying behavior? Bullies are generally looking for power and may have a more authoritarian perspective on social hierarchy. But they also know that their behavior is unjust and morally questionable. And their bullying behavior may stem from a deep unanswered need inside of them.
 
Having allies helps when calling out bullies and/or inappropriate behavior. Little Honey may have felt more secure knowing that her older sister was by her side. She was also familiar with the teenagers that she stood up to. There’s no way to know for sure what fueled the dangerous rock throwing behavior in the older children. There’s also no way to be sure as to why their behavior changed. Perhaps it was because Little Honey asserted herself or because she ended up getting inadvertently hurt. Regardless, in this setting Little Honey felt the need and determination to speak up about the bad behavior and she ultimately got what she wanted.
 
Protecting our children and yet simultaneously encouraging them to stand up for what they believe in may not have to be at odds. It is our sincere hope that after reading our story, you will engage your children in honest and meaningful conversations as to when and how to respond to the bad behavior of others. There are now many children’s books out there to help guide parents and teachers that may be worth exploring. What advice do you give to your children about calling out inappropriate and/or bullying behavior?
 
 
 

​Authors and writers often change or add to real stories for effect, all of which is part of “poetic license”.

The Little Honey stories are no different.  All the stories are based on true events about little vignettes from our childhood.  Originally, the stories were only told at bedtime in a last ditch effort to get my young children to fall asleep, but early in the writing process, I added conversations to the stories. These conversations are not the exact words spoken at the time but definitely very near to the exact thoughts.

Also, another early decision was made to include my brother, Drew as Baby Tru, in all the stories although in real life, he is 7 years younger than me.  Likewise, while all the stories take place in the same setting on Digby Road in Baltimore and Little Honey and Angel remain the same ages of 4 and 5 years old, some of the stories occurred elsewhere and when we were older.

The Back Story, The Rock Story, The Watermelon Story, and The Fish Story are all very nearly exactly as the events unfolded in real time over 60 years ago; however, two of the Stories, The Baseball Story and The Peanut Story occurred a bit later in time chronologically.

The Baseball Story occurred over two summers in 1964-65 when I was 8 and 9 years old and by then, my family had moved to Piccadilly Road in Towson. But what occurred really did happen almost exactly as in the story and I really did hit that home run and many other home runs, too.

The Peanut Story occurred a year later in 1966.  At the time, our family lived in England but everything else about the story is true.  Years later when I told my children the story, the Peanut Story became a story inside a story.  A literary device sometimes called a “Metadrama” is used in several of William Shakespeare’s plays including A Midsummer’s Night’s Dream and Love’s Labour’s Lost.

BUT the real secrets lie in two popular stories: The Icing Story and The Beach Story.

In The Beach Story, after trying to keep up with the big kids and play tricks, Little Honey locks one of the outside shower doors but she ends up locking the shower door of her own Mommy! In the story, Little Honey confesses to Mommy right away that she was the one who locked Mommy in the shower. But in fact, that’s not what happened. Mommy never knew who locked her in the shower until she read the Beach Story 40 years later and learned that it was Little Honey - aka me - who locked her in the shower.  By then, Mommy thoroughly enjoyed the Beach story and laughed at the quandary of her own daughter.

And then there’s The Icing story when Little Honey licks the icing off Angel’s birthday cake not once but TWICE.  In the story, Little Honey confesses to Mommy quickly that it was she who licked off the icing. But the truth? I did not admit licking the icing until I was much older-20 years older.  I did not admit it even after all the years of playful insinuations and even after all the birthdays when my father would amusingly say to me: “You know someone has already licked the icing on the cake so you can do it too, now.”  Instead, I finally decided to come clean before the birth of my first child. In my defense, the icing on Angel’s birthday cake really was the most delicious chocolate icing in the whole entire world and for the record, licking icing has become a requirement in our household and a folk legend in our family.
​
What is your favorite “Icing” or “Beach” story from your childhood?  Have you told your parents? Have you told your children or grandchildren?

​ 
This month we interviewed Baby Tru – now far more than two. We hope you enjoy his recollections and updates!
 
1. If you have any recollection of the stories in the Little Honey books, how does your memory differ from the stories?

Wow, so Little Honey and Angel have been writing seven books for seven years about a time 70 years ago!  (Just kidding, it wasn't that long ago!) But all of us with happy childhoods can't help but think back on things that stood out--and help us to remember our family that have helped make us who we are today.
 
Except, I don't remember anything because Baby Tru was just a baby!!!  Except for ONE story: The Peanut Story. I remember the peanut story because Little Honey told it to me when she was babysitting me one day. (OK, I guess I do remember some things after all because I also remember the pine tree in the backyard where Little Honey hit her home run in The Baseball Story!!)
 
Our father was a professor and when his students had to take tests, they were given a little book stapled together with a light blue cover and white, blue-lined writing paper inside. These were called bluebooks, and he brought home old ones for us to use as scrap paper for drawing and coloring.
 
I am not sure if I remember the first time Little Honey told me The Peanut Story, but I remember when she wrote it down in a bluebook and drew my friend the peanut on the cover. Little Honey and Angel liked to make little drawings, particularly of Mr. Spock all over their school notebooks!
 
So I was so excited when they told me they were going to publish The Peanut Story. Finally a story about Baby Tru! They asked me for some old photos of Baby Tru. But when the book came out, all the illustrations in the book show Baby Tru with the face of my own son Magnus! There goes my fifteen minutes of fame!  Well, there's always a new Baby Tru!
 
I can also tell you the story about the time Angel brought me to the YMCA with her friend, Big Tru; He let me play with a real, battery-powered megaphone. Then I shouted to the people way far away on the baseball field using the megaphone and interrupted their baseball game, and Big Tru took the megaphone back.
 
I can also tell you the story of when Little Honey taught Baby Tru to ride a bicycle.  Baby Tru could only ride a bicycle with little training wheels; he didn't know how to balance on a big bicycle. So Little Honey held the back of her big, two-wheeled bike and let me pedal and steer the handlebars. It was the first time I'd ever been on a bicycle with only two wheels! 
 
On our street there was a big hill, and Little Honey said she would run down it with me holding on to the bicycle, but you know Little Honey is a little trickster sometimes. I started going down the hill riding the big, two-wheeled bicycle! I felt safe, though, knowing Little Honey was holding on. It was so fun--I was going faster and faster with only two wheels!  
 
But soon I knew I must be going too fast for Little Honey--she must have been forced to let go in the middle of the hill somewhere as we were going down, so I risked looking backwards for just a second.
 
But Little Honey wasn't halfway up the hill, or a quarter-way up the hill; no, she was all the way back at the top of the hill!!  She'd just let me go at the very beginning!  I rode down the whole hill by myself and even rode on some of the flat part of the street at the bottom --and no training wheels! It was so much fun!! And today I can still ride a bike without training wheels!
 
2. You now have a "Baby Tru" of your own. He has now outgrown the books but what was his response to the stories when he was younger?
 
We used to read the Little Honey stories to Magnus every night before he'd go to sleep along with all the other children's books and he would often request different ones. I think his favorite was The Watermelon Story. Many of our friends who were having kids at this time also read to their toddlers from the Little Honey stories.
 
3. You are a writer and have your own blog. Tell us a little bit about that.
 
I started a blog on Medium.com last year called "Translated from the American..." about my experiences living in France.  The title comes from the fact that, despite everyone who corrected you when you were little to say you speak "English" not "American," books translated into French actually say that and specify on the title page if the book was "traduit de l'anglais" or "traduit de l'américaine." 

​In our book, The Fish Story, the furnace broke down in the little white house on Digby Road during a very cold winter night. Little Honey and Angel cuddled in to keep warm but, in the morning, they discovered their big sister Cissy’s little goldfish appeared to have frozen to death. The three little sisters were devastated. Wanting to cheer up her children, Mommy placed the fishbowl in a warm oven. The entire family was surprised to find “Goldie” swimming happily in the bowl once it was removed from the oven.
 
This is a true story and my sister and I remember clearly the sense of astonishment and excitement we felt as little girls when the goldfish appeared to miraculously come back to life. We now know that goldfish can thrive in relatively cold water and will become dormant if the temperature of the water drops below 60 degrees for any period of time. But as children, our innocent view of life supported a sense of awe about the workings of the world and the miracles and magic that were an intricate part of that world.
 
As adults we often lose that sense of wonder as we seek to control our environment. Because of our experiences with pain and tragedies, over time we become more wary and fearful of negative outcomes. However, it’s possible to reconnect with our inner child and find the charm in every day life again. Rather than wait for the universe to provide us with external evidence of its marvels, we need to give ourselves permission to believe that life is magical, mysterious, and miraculous - and then those beliefs will reflect directly back to us.
 
A book I loved as a child was Tom’s Midnight Garden. In this book, a young boy, Tom, is sent from his home and family in order to quarantine him and keep him safe. He is lonely and depressed living with his aunt and uncle. But the garden he discovers and visits each night at midnight fills his need for friendship and mystery. Do you remember any books that you read as child that filled your heart with hope and a belief in magic? If so, feel free to comment below!
 

​When my sister, Rachel, first asked me to illustrate the children’s books she had written, I was both honored and, frankly, a bit intimidated. I had loved drawing and painting as a child and even began college as an art major. However, that had been more than three decades earlier. And, additionally, the media I had used in the past had been primarily charcoal and oil and I didn’t think those were the right media to use for children’s stories.
 
I spent a few months practicing and looking at children’s books to decide what I wanted to do. I saw that the realistic art that I had received training in was not going to work. Most children’s stories use much more vibrant colors than occur in reality and far more fantastical humans and creatures.
 
After months of thinking it through I decided that I wanted to use watercolor – and that I wanted to use a children’s watercolor palette to make it almost appear as though a child could do the illustrations. I also wanted to make the children appear somewhat cartoonish but I did not want to feature the adults in the stories at all. I decided that for the most part their faces would be obscured or cut off so that the children would be featured. It also occurred to me that if we didn’t give “Mommy” and “Daddy” faces then children could imagine their own parents in the story. Based on this contribution from one of our young readers, Peyton P., I’m not sure that idea was fully successful!
 
Illustrating is a creative process rather than a scientific process but there are  resources out there to help if this is something you want to do. For me, it was really fun to work on something where there were no rules and where perfection was not required.
 
One of my favorite children’s books is Where the Wild Things Are based, to a great extent, on the imagination and creativity of the illustrations. Do you have a favorite book based on illustrations? If so feel free to share in the comments section.
 

“What’s in a name? that which we call a rose by any other name would still smell as sweet.”  Juliet Capulet to Romeo Montague in William Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet, Act II Scene II.

“What’s in a name” has a lot of meaning beyond the Shakespeare quote.  How do we name our children and what is the meaning for the parents and children?

My daughter’s middle name is Rose.  She is named after her grandmother and her grandmother was named after her grandmother who was named after her grandmother and the name Rose has been traced all the way to San Fele, Italy in 1815.

In fact, there are naming traditions from all over the world. Before the 20th century, our family’s Irish and Italian naming traditions followed a set pattern. The firstborn sons were often named after their paternal grandfather, the second born sons after the maternal grandfather and the third sons either after their father or after their father’s eldest brother.  For firstborn daughters, they were often named for their paternal grandmother, second born daughters were named for the maternal grandmother and the third daughter for the mother or mother’s eldest sister.  

Today, there appears to be a shift away from traditional naming patterns. Every year the Social Security Administration lists the top names for boys and girls. There are also online resources to assist parents in choosing a name.

In the original Little Honey stories told to my children, I identified each character as my children would know them such as MumMum, Papa, Aunt Tara, Uncle Drew etc.  But when the books were in development, fictional names needed to be created.

I became Little Honey because my mother often referred to me as Honey and my sister, Tara, became Angel because she really was such a good child and the best sister ever.  Cissy was a play on my father’s sister’s nickname.  As a child, my father could not pronounce his sister’s name which was, Rosemary. Instead, he called her Sis for sister.  The nickname stuck.  She was always Sis to her immediate family and Aunt Sis to all the cousins. So, Cissy for my eldest sister in the stories seemed to fit perfectly.

And what about “Baby Tru not quite two?”  When my brother Drew was little, my father sang a little singsongy tune “True blue, son of Lou, baby Drew.” But I decided against baby Blue because of the popularity of the television series, Blue’s Clues. Instead, ”Baby Tru not quite two” was born!

What are the naming traditions in your family? How did you pick out the names of your children?
 
 

In our book, The Peanut Story, Little Honey tells a story to help her little brother, Baby Tru, fall asleep. The story she tells comes from her heart. She believes that Baby Tru must be lonely so she conjures up a friend for him. Little Honey then relies on her own experiences to imagine Baby Tru as a child about her age, having the kinds of adventures with his friend that she is capable of envisioning. This story within a story is all about love.
 
Our Little Honey books began as oral stories that author, Rachel Eisenhauer, told to her children before bed when they were little. Our brother overheard her one night and encouraged her to write the stories down. However, Rachel was not pleased with the outcome of the written stories and, instead, chose to record the story telling and then transcribe the recorded versions to written word. Each of these stories was a mother’s gift to her children – a gift of love.
 
Most of us feel powerful connections to stories and their tellers. There is not only a level of comprehension that occurs when a story is told but an emotional response as well. We pour our hearts and souls into the stories we tell and children not only enjoy hearing them but they absorb that love. The impact of stories on children is vast and includes helping them develop empathy and a sense of identity. As they visualize themselves in the stories they hear, children can reimagine the world they live in.
 
Each Little Honey book is a story that came from the heart. So it seemed only natural that within the final story of our series, the final little lesson would be “Sharing stories with family and friends is a special way to show love.” It is our deepest hope that you and your children will sense the love in our stories.
 
One story I remember reading and sharing with my brother when we were both children was Peter Pan. A world where children could fly intrigued and excited me and I wanted to share that with someone I loved. What stories did you love as children? Do you tell your children stories about your childhoods? If so, feel free to share some of your adventures – or the response of your children – in the comments.

We grew up in the 60s and our neighborhood was not diverse. We had no Asian, Hispanic, Black, or Muslim children to play with. And initially our books and illustrations reflected this because the books were intended to be somewhat autobiographical.
 
However, it is in early childhood and during the time of identity development that children begin to recognize physical differences. They begin to be aware of racial and ethnic differences and understand where they belong. Interestingly, as children learn about their own identity they also begin to absorb messages of racial and cultural bias.
 
Our parents were very cognizant of the issues of racial injustice. While still in college during the early 1950s, our father wrote an article for the University of Maryland’s newspaper, the Diamondback, where he expounded on the need to desegregate schools and colleges. The Baltimore Sun republished his article and our father received death threats as a result. Undaunted, he chose to lean into his values and to teach in a community college where people of all races and backgrounds were accepted. He joined Martin Luther King Jr.’s March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom in August 1963 and took to the pulpit at the Unitarian Church that we attended as children when our minister was arrested for civil disobedience while marching for racial justice.
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These lessons are a part of our personal history. So we felt it was essential to edit our books to reflect a slightly different reality than the actual segregated neighborhood of our childhood. It may not be the reality of our old neighborhood but it is the reality of our values.
 
One of our earliest fictional encounters with diversity was not through literature but through a television show. When it first came out, Star Trek caught our imaginations. The diverse bridge of the USS Enterprise, with Asian, African, East European humans and even an alien, felt exciting to us. In more recent years I had the opportunity to meet and work with Nichelle Nichols, who played the communications officer, Uhura. Her accounts of the racial biases and obstacles that she and the show faced were truly fascinating. There were towns, particularly in the southern part of our country that banned the show from airing for having the audacity to put a black woman on the bridge.
 
Are there books and experiences that helped open your eyes to the need and beauty of diversity? If so, feel free to share in the comments below.