Member publishes book and shares curriculum
04/05/2016

J. Mac Reed always wanted to write a book, but teaching eleventh-grade American literature and raising four children delayed his ambition. It took until the last of his four children left for college for him to find the time to accomplish the task.

Reed, an ISTA member of 31 years, teaches at Penn High School in Mishawaka. His new book, Sea of Echoes, is the product of a fruitful collaboration with illustrator Ruthie Briggs-Greenberg. He didn’t start with the intention to pen a children’s book, but Briggs-Greenberg brought him the idea of a picture book telling the story of an orphaned fin whale.

“Ruthie had a brief outline that she had tried to work with other authors on, but no one had come up with what she was looking for,” said Reed.

The outline told the story of a fin whale that had to find a new whale pod to stay alive. Whales, much like humans, have higher intelligence and a social order, Reed explained. They survive by feeding together and protecting one another during the long migration they make annually.

In researching the book, Reed found fin whales to be the most mysterious species, because they don’t maintain a routine migration route. They are harder to track and study. However, Reed confirmed that whales do, in fact, communicate across species and enter pods of another species for survival.

Reed incorporated this into his narrative. The story’s protagonist, Finn, is orphaned after his mother is killed by poachers. Finn encounters a pod of blue whales with whom he develops the ability to communicate and finds a kinship after the loss of his mother.

On its surface, the topic seems dark for a children’s book, but Reed explained, “kids are sharper and more mature than we give them credit for.”

Reed’s main goal in writing the book was to entertain and inform. To enhance the instructive aspects of the book, he prepared a complete language arts curriculum for grades K – 5 to accompany the book, or that can be used on its own.

“Being a teacher myself, I know how hard it is to write curriculum,” said Reed. “I wanted to make it easy for new teachers, too.”

Now a published author, Reed is in development for three more books, including a book on the dark ages in England, a vampire story and a fictional account of his experiences growing up in Indiana in the 1960s.

Sea of Echoes is available online through his publisher Rowman & Littlefield, Barnes & Noble, Target and Walmart.