When teacher Denise Kaminsky decided to write children’s books for young, reluctant readers, she chose the most inspiring hero she could think of for the children of Penn Staters — the Nittany Lion.
Originally from Nanticoke, Kaminsky is a dedicated Penn State alumna and Nittany Lions football fan who moved back to State College in 2016. She sports a streak of blue in her white hair, which gives an added bit of fun at her book signings.
Writing books wasn’t part of Kaminsky’s original career plan. She earned her elementary and kindergarten education degree from Penn State in 1973, followed by a master’s degree in reading from SUNY Cortland in 1979. For 23 years, Kaminsky was a reading specialist, followed by nine years as a third-grade teacher.
“When I was doing remedial reading instruction in the elementary school, kids would be forever having certain words that they had trouble remembering. So, I would put those words into sentences, thinking that the context clues would help them catch onto those words. And that seemed to work.
“Then, with positive feedback from the kids — the success that they were having — I started writing paragraphs. The paragraphs became stories. Some of my teacher friends thought my stories were good stories, and I decided to try to publish some of them.”
In 2003, she sold “This Is the Seed,” a 115-word reading-practice book, to Continental Press, a source of teachers’ materials.
“After I retired, I wanted to stay connected with kids, and thought I could tweak some of my stories or come up with Nittany Lion stories that would be something that the kids would like to read. If they read the Nittany Lion storybooks, hopefully they would be stepping stones to other books.”
“Nittany Lion Has the Hiccups”(published in 2011) was inspired by how her students would focus on a classmate with hiccups instead of the teacher or lesson. Kaminsky’s first version of the story featured her daughter and her girlfriend. The revised, published story focuses on Nittany Lion’s hiccups. His animal friends recommend hiccup cures but they don’t work. Nittany Lion continues on his walk and finds Grandmother Bear, who tells him a cure that does work — drinking half a glass of water while someone presses gently on his ears.
Kaminsky learned about this method from a friend.
She worked with a subsidy publisher, Mascot Books, to design and print her hardcover illustrated books for first and second graders. The company recommended an illustrator for the hiccups book who was unfamiliar with the Nittany Lion and made him look very broad.
To prevent this in future books, Kaminsky asked two Penn State alumni to illustrate her next seven books. Her daughter, Jessie Kaminsky, an elementary school teacher and self-taught artist, illustrated five stories. Like her mother, she obtained her degree in elementary and kindergarten education from Penn State, then earned a master’s degree from the University of Nevada at Reno.
Denise Kaminsky’s author/illustrator friend, Michelle Kemper Brownlow, supplied drawings for two of the books when Jessie wasn’t available.
Kaminsky chose the topics of the stories to interest reluctant young readers — a big surprise at Beaver Stadium, celebrating the Fourth of July, telling the legend of Princess Nit-A-Nee, planning a Pennsylvania vacation, being an everyday superhero, THON, and Earth Day.
“There’s some sort of message in each one,” she says. “If you can sneak it in, in a subtle way, make it a subliminal message, it should pay off in the long run.”
Regarding her writing process, Kaminsky says, “I twist and turn it around in my head until I have a pretty good idea of what I want the whole story to be. And then I’ll sit down and write it.”
Kaminsky sets the story aside for days or a week before starting to polish it. She also asks people to critique it, to point out things she didn’t notice. The editing process could take a year.
“I’ve sold over 20,000 copies.” She says the hiccups and big-surprise books have been the most popular.
The THON and hiccups books have sold out, but the other six are available. She doesn’t plan to reprint them.
Instead, she’s working on a new series of three books based on her childhood and Polish/Ukrainian heritage. Her next children’s book, “Baba’s Babushka” (Grandmother’s scarf), will be published in February or March 2025 by ABV Publishing. The story will be illustrated by Michelle Kemper Brownlow.
Kaminsky says the feedback she receives about her books from adults and kids is very positive. “I have a following. There won’t be a next Nittany Lion book, but maybe they’ll like this one.”
She participates in Bookfest at Schlow Library in July, and her books are available on Amazon and at local stores including The Family Clothesline, McLanahan’s, Webster’s Bookstore, Christine’s Hallmark, The Student Bookstore, and Lion and Cub in State College, and Way Fruit Farm in Stormstown.
For more information, visit dlk-childrens-books.com or email [email protected] (include Nittany Lion Books in the subject line). T&G
Karen Dabney is a freelance writer in State College.
