The Harvard Family Research Project separated from the Harvard Graduate School of Education to become the Global Family Research Project as of January 1, 2017. It is no longer affiliated with Harvard University.
Tomasito: About the Creators of the Storybook
About the Author
Ellen Mayer is a researcher who studies the different ways in which families help their children to learn and grow. She develops resources that families and educators can use to promote family engagement in education. One such resource is the Family Involvement Storybook Project—which helps parents and teachers use storybooks with family involvement themes to generate reflection, conversation, and action to support children's academic success. Ellen holds two master's degrees in sociology and lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts, with her husband and teenage son. Tomasito's Mother Comes to School/La mamá de Tomasito visita la escuela, developed at Harvard Family Research Project, is her first research-based children's book.
About the Illustrator
Joe Cepeda is an award-winning illustrator of numerous children's books. In 2002, he received the American Library Association's (ALA) Pura Belpré Honor Book Award, given to a Latino/Latina writer and illustrator whose work best portrays, affirms, and celebrates the Latino cultural experience in a work of literature for children and youth. Joe lives in Southern California with his wife and young son. During his elementary school years in East Los Angeles, he was challenged by language differences between his Spanish-speaking home and his English-speaking school. But, like Tomasito, he benefited from having a mother who strongly supported his education and was actively involved in his school. To learn more about Joe Cepeda, visit his website.
About the Translator
Esther Sarfatti has been translating children's books for over 10 years and has worked in the publishing world since 1985. She has translated more than 100 books, including the popular Arthur series. Born in New York and brought up in a trilingual home, Esther currently lives with her husband and son in Madrid, Spain.
Storybook Funding
Tomasito's Mother Comes to School/La mamá de Tomasito visita la escuela was made possible by a grant from the W. K. Kellogg Foundation, with additional support from the Reading Is Fundamental/Coca-Cola partnership, Reading Takes You Places. Harvard Family Research Project is grateful for their support. The content of this publication is solely the responsibility of Harvard Family Research Project and does not necessarily reflect the views of funding organizations.
Author Acknowledgments
This little book was a long time in the making. Many people contributed their encouragement and skills to creating Tomasito's Mother Comes to School/La mamá de Tomasito visita la escuela.
Thanks first and foremost to Harvard Family Research Project (HFRP) director Heather B. Weiss for the opportunity and encouragement she provided to me in developing this new kind of research-based family involvement tool.
Thanks to Carol Rasco and her colleagues at Reading Is Fundamental, Deb Gaffin at Scholastic.com, and Concha Delgado-Gaitan for their enthusiasm for and help with this project. Thanks also to the Child Welfare League of America for their assistance in the early stages of this project.
For manuscript review and feedback, thanks to writing instructor Pat Sherman and her class in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and to Leslie Brunetta and Karen Braun. Thanks also to my HFRP research colleagues Margaret Caspe, Priscilla M. D. Little, M. Elena Lopez, and Abby R. Weiss for their review, with particular thanks to Holly M. Kreider for reading many story drafts and contributing her ideas for the family information section.
Several practitioners who are experts in working with Latino families on educational issues provided detailed critique of the story and family information. I am very grateful to Emilia Alvarez, the statewide training director at the Parent Institute for Quality Education; Pilar Buelna, former director of the Families In Schools–Parent Information & Resource Center; and James St. Clair, a kindergarten teacher at the Amigos School in Cambridge, Massachusetts, for their review.
We were extremely fortunate to have children's book illustrator Joe Cepeda join our team, bringing his talent and empathy to this story that parallels his own experiences as a little boy. Thanks also to graduate student intern Emily Gorin, who researched potential illustrator collaborators and put Joe at the top of the list.
We were also fortunate to have Esther Sarfatti as the Spanish translator and Teresa Mlawer, president of Lectorum Publications, as the translation editor. Thanks also to Emilia Alvarez, Ricardo Mora, Helen Westmoreland, and Claudia Garcia Grasso for assistance with the translation.
Special thanks to HFRP publications editor and MFA in writing for young people Carrie-Anne DeDeo for editing the storybook and contributing her knowledge of children's literature to many phrases of this project. We are also grateful for the early help in editing and book production provided to us by Tegan Culler.
Thanks to Sheila Walsh of Sheila Walsh Designs in Somerville, Massachusetts, who designed and produced this online storybook and to Marcella Michaud, HFRP's publications and communication manager, for providing encouragement, expert advice, and assistance in managing this book's production.
Finally, there would be no storybook had we not known about the original little boy and his family and teacher whose experiences inspired this. They were participants in the School Transition Study, a research study supported by the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation as part of its Research Network on Successful Pathways Through Middle Childhood, a study that was codirected by Heather B. Weiss. Study ethnographers Gisella Hanley and Jane Wellenkamp conducted interviews with the original “Tomasito,” his family and teachers, and recorded observations of his home, classroom, school, and neighborhood.