When I was a child growing up in Massachusetts, I spent countless hours in my family's shoe store. It was a magical place, filled with numerous things to keep me occupied while my parents worked. I explored the storeroom with its endless rows of colorful shoe boxes and climbed into the display windows to play with the decorations. Standing on my own footstool, I pushed the enormous buttons and cranked the handle of an antique cast-iron cash register. This was great fun and, of course, valuable experience in learning how to identify and add money.
But without a doubt, what I liked best about being in the store was mingling among the customers in the shoe salon. Basically, I snooped. Quietly eavesdropping, I soaked up language with all its variations in cadence and inflection. I became a talented mimic, entertaining my family with performances constructed from snippets of stolen conversation. I created characters, each one an amalgam of many different customers. I was particularly fond of using idiomatic language in my comedy routines. Remember, this was New England, where dialect is rich and colorful. It didn't much matter that the meanings of these expressions escaped me. I just liked the sound of the words. Looking back, I can say that those early acts of thievery were the seeds of a future writing career. Only, it would take many years for those seeds to sprout.
I graduated from Brandeis University, where I studied sociology and languages and then went on to earn an M.A. in linguistics from Columbia University. My original goal was to be a college professor, but life got in the way. I got married, moved all over the country, and pursued several nonacademic jobs before beginning a family. I chose to stay at home when my children were young. This was a tough job, but I enjoyed every minute of it. All parents I'm sure will agree, that there is nothing better than snuggling with a sweet-smelling child and sharing a story.
Our home was filled with books, and as our library grew, so did my interest in children's literature. I finally knew what it was that I wanted to do. I returned to school to study elementary education, concentrating in reading and children's literature courses. I began to write, each story showing improvement over the previous one. After writing about a dozen picture books and receiving more than two hundred rejections, I sold my first manuscript. It was Pigs Will Be Pigs, the story of the hungry pig family who hunts through their house looking for enough money to dine at their favorite restaurant. The characters were lovable. Their language was humorous. And they counted money. It's interesting how things came full circle.
One title led to another and eventually to an eight book series. Each adventure finds the Pigs in a predicament where they must use math to solve their problems. The curious thing in all of this is that I never intended to write math-based picture books! Despite my early experience at the cash register, math was neither my strongest nor favorite subject. So why do the Pigs books work so well in teaching math? I think it's because they are picture books first. I wrote them to be fun, satisfying stories filled with humorous, idiomatic language. Then, I wove in the math. This was not difficult to do, since math is everywhere in our daily lives. When I'm asked what I like best about the Pigs, I always say it's their family dynamic. They help each other, are respectful, and like to have a good time. They're a genuine loving family, just like my own.
Amy Axelrod lives with her husband Michael in New York's Hudson Valley in a stone house dated 1729. Their two sons are grown and are off having adventures of their own.
Visit www.amyaxelrod.com for teaching tips, lesson plans, and classroom reproducibles for the Pigs Will Be Pigs Math Series.
Biography provided by Simon and Schuster.
