Beth Anderson, Children's Writer

WHY? That’s always my driving question as an author bringing stories from the past to life. And it was where author Nancy Churnin started, too, for her latest book, VALENTINES FOR ALL. Here she shares her process of putting her heart and the heart of the story on the page.

GIVEAWAY! Nancy’s giveaway comes with a fun challenge. Leave a comment and a “roses are red” poem, and you just might win your own copy of VALENTINES FOR ALL!  

Congrats to mphollinshead, winner of Jilanne Hoffman’s giveaway of a 30-minute Ask-Me-Anything or a copy of A RIVER OF DUST! 

You’ve Gotta Have Heart

By Nancy Churnin

I love Valentine’s Day. When you think about it, how amazing is it to set a whole day aside just to tell people how much you care about them? Growing up, I loved spending time picking out valentines for my classmates and decorating boxes to keep the valentines that I received.

When you’re a kid, it can be hard to put your feelings into words. So, my friends and I would spend weeks looking for just the right cards that said what we wanted to say, that had images we wanted to share – often funny, sometimes sweet. Much later as an adult who is forever asking why, I wondered how this whole tradition began. If you go far back enough you learn about St. Valentine, who is commonly believed to have died around A.D. 496 after getting into trouble for helping couples wed. Although there are a lot of different theories about who he was, what he did, when he did it and why.

 But what I really wanted to know was who started the card tradition that I looked forward to every year. And that’s how I discovered Esther Howland.

Valentine’s Day was not widely celebrated in America when Esther was growing up in the early 1800s. It was considered a waste of time. But after Esther’s father gave her a Valentine card he had brought home from England, hoping she would feel, from the gift, how much he loved her, she had a revelation. Not everyone could express their feelings in words. What if she created cards that helped people say what they felt? The cards she created, with the help of friends in her family’s home, became so popular that she became known as “the Queen of Hearts.”

This to me was the heart of the story and something I related to on multiple levels. The child in me connected with the wonder of how someone could create a card that would say just what I wanted to say to a friend or family. The adult me, who had by now written many books connecting the feelings of my subjects with the feelings of my readers, felt I found a sister under the skin in Esther, who devoted herself to understanding and channeling emotions for people.

While I had written many picture book biographies before I started this one, I felt Esther was challenging me her to do something I hadn’t done before –make myself vulnerable by writing and sprinkling the simple, straight-to-the-heart kind of poems that Esther might have written in the “Roses are red, Violets are blue” structure I had grown up with as a child. These poems, which work as sidebars to the story, each use a different flower in the imagery. They express what Esther might have been feeling at each point in the story.

I intended for the poems to be the sing-song kind that might spark a child’s courage to write as they might think I can do this, too! So, while they may not be elegant and sophisticated, they are poems of my heart, connecting Esther’s heart to mine and I hope to young readers. In the back matter, I give examples of different poetry structures that kids can try as I encourage them to “Write Your Own Valentines.”

Too often in this world, children are bombarded by images and examples of how they think they are expected to feel. While this is a story about a woman who helped others express feelings they struggled to put in words, I hope Esther will encourage kids to express their own feelings in words as she did and to share those feelings with friends and loved ones.

There are two other elements of the story that connect with my heart. One is the revelation of how much her Valentine cards meant to people during the Civil War. In times of fear and loss – something we know too much of today, too — it is important to remember that being in touch with and expressing feelings are not luxuries but essentials in our ability to persevere and find resilience through difficult times.

The other element that speaks to me is Esther defying expectations and knowing her worth at a time when women were not expected to be entrepreneurs or leaders. In fact, the part that really gets to me is that her father had a paper company called S.A. Howland & Sons. Esther’s father adored her and, in fact, it was his valentine to her that sparked her big idea. He just didn’t expect her, as a woman, to be involved in the family business. How cool it is that Esther and her valentine card company proved to be the greatest success in the family!

I am grateful to illustrator Monika Roza Wisniewska for capturing the heart that drove Esther on every page and the Worcester Historical Museum in Esther’ hometown of Worcester, Massachusetts, which helped me with my research and gave us permission to reproduce two of Esther’ actual vintage valentines. I am excited to see the valentines and cards that children may create after being inspired by Esther’s example.

To quote the final poem in my book:

“Roses are red. Forget-me-nots, blue. Why don’t you make your dreams come true?”

I look forward to giving away a copy of Valentines for All to someone who writes a Valentine’s Day poem in the comments!

Don’t forget to leave a comment and a little poem for a chance to win a copy of VALENTINES FOR ALL! (US addresses only, please. Winner announced 11/10/23)

Please visit my Valentines for All page here

Check out my teacher guide here

And visit me on social media here:

On Facebook: Nancy Churnin and Nancy Churnin Children’s Books

Twitter:  @nchurnin

Instagram:  @nchurnin

Bluesky:  @nchurnin.bsky.social

Website: https://www.nancychurnin.com