Glen Ellyn District 41 teachers go beyond the classroom as authors

GLEN ELLYN — Outside of school, teachers play a variety of roles, and for some teachers in Glen Ellyn District 41, their role of choice is author.

Nancy Drummond McCaffrey, Pat HarteNaus, Julie Nicolai and Lisa Buchholz all teach in the district, but that is not all they have in common. The women are all published authors, one with a fictional book based right in Glen Ellyn.

The book "Wright to Machu Picchu" by Drummond McCaffrey, who teaches the accelerated and enriched curriculum for third, fourth and fifth graders at Abraham Lincoln Elementary School, takes place on the Glenbard West High School campus and involves a mysterious artifact found by students there.

The sibling team of detectives in the book tries to figure out how the artifact from Machu Picchu ended up in Glen Ellyn, tying in Glen Ellyn's own history and the belief that Frank Lloyd Wright's architectural firm designed one of the village's historical homes.

Drummond McCaffrey's personal experiences, including her status as an alumna of Glenbard West and a trip she took to Machu Picchu when she was younger, greatly influenced her book.

HarteNaus, also a fiction writer and a fifth-grade teacher at Abraham Lincoln, is the author behind the Belden Boys series, two books that center on the fictional history of a real-life schoolhouse in Galena.

HarteNaus's book started as part of a master's class when she received an assignment to do something outside the classroom for students.

For her project, she decided to try to revive an old schoolhouse in Galena, and her plans were ultimately followed when the schoolhouse opened as a museum two years ago.

HarteNaus has written two historical books in the Belden Boy series about fictional students at the Galena schoolhouse, including "The Adventures of Peter McDugal" and "My Sometimes Pal."

Her books include some facts based on old journals or the oral histories of former students, with HarteNaus's own fictional tales woven in.

Her stories also address bullying through the hero, Peter McDugal, who is sometimes bullied by his friend Franky. She has plans to write a third book, possibly from the perspective of Franky.

Nicolai, who teaches fourth grade at Forest Glen Elementary School, and Buchholz, who teaches first grade at Abraham Lincoln Elementary School, used their educational experiences and knowledge to write resource books for other teachers. Buchholz has written various instructional math books for teachers.

Nicolai's book on bullying titled "Road Map Through Bullying: Effective Bully Prevention for Educators" shares a teacher's perspective on how to deal with these kinds of issues, a perspective not commonly shared in books on bullying written by psychologists and others in similar positions.

"Road Map Through Bullying" is meant for administrators, teachers, parents and even students.

Nicolai said the purpose behind her book was to help people address bullying and prevent it. She said before she wrote her book, there weren't books on bullying written by teachers in the U.S. Hers was the first, she said.

Since writing the book, Nicolai has been busy speaking to organizations and groups about bullying.

She said she's received calls with positive feedback from all over the country, and those calls are how she knows she's made a difference.

While HarteNaus said she experienced difficulties with the publishing process, Nicolai said she was ultimately happy with the publishing decision she made: to self-publish through her husband's company.

Both HarteNaus and Nicolai said, however, the pre-publishing process involved writing letters to every publisher they could find that might possibly be interested in publishing their books.

The long publishing process was worth it, they said, not only because they were able to share their writing with others, but also because of the reactions of their students.

"They think I'm famous," Nicolai said. "They bring the books in, and I autograph them."

Buy the books
Find the books mentioned at Amazon.com, The Bookstore, 475 N. Main St. Suite 100, Glen Ellyn, or Stacy's Corners, 800 N. Main St., Glen Ellyn.