Second grade teacher Mary Dickerson has written and published her first ever children’s book, “A Tale of Two Friends”. “A Tale of Two Friends” is a children’s book about how to write a complete sentence, and is meant to teach young students basic grammar skills. On Sept. 14, the book was published and is now available to purchase on Amazon and Kindle Direct Publishing in either paperback, hardback, or e-book format.

“A Tale of Two Friends” follows two main characters, Subject and Predicate. The two characters used to work together to create complete sentences, but when Subject and Predicate begin to work on their own they realize they cannot form a complete sentence, only fragments. By the end of the book, the pair make up and begin working together again to create complete sentences.

“The main goal of this book is to help students understand what makes a complete sentence, whether it is simple or compound,” Dickerson said. “Then the next goal is for them to be able to apply that with their writing, because they love writing stories at this age. The biggest disconnect teachers feel is when we teach how to write a sentence in isolation, and then when students go write a story they don’t apply it to their writing. I’m hoping that this book will help them know what a subject and a predicate is and how to put those together in a sentence. If they still don’t understand something, they can always go back to the book for help.”

Basic grammar skills, like learning how to form a proper sentence, are skills that people have to use every day. Bramlett Elementary teacher Haley Beth Pegueros spoke about how a person can be affected if they do not learn the concepts taught in “A Tale of Two Friends”.

“Grammar skills carry over into everyday life in all aspects,” Pegueros said. “You are talking and writing to people for the rest of your life, it is how we communicate. If we don’t know how to create a sentence, even if it’s verbal, that is going to affect us for the rest of our life. I think this book can really help any age with that skill.”

For Dickerson, becoming an author was never on the map for her. Over this past summer she attended a conference for the Mississippi Department of Education at Mississippi State University. At this conference she met Kathy Smith, a fellow children’s book author and owner of Summa School, a company that encourages teachers to write children’s books.

“I met Mary at an exhibitor booth I had set up with my books,” Smith said. “She came by my booth and was interested, and we instantly connected. Throughout her writing process I helped guide her, whether she needed help with book writing, formatting, or anything else it takes to publish a book. My main role was to motivate her and encourage her to keep going.”

Before Dickerson met Smith, becoming an author was something she had previously never thought of do-
ing. After the conference, she kept in contact with Smith and began writing “A Tale of Two Friends”, and Dickerson quickly fell in love with the writing process.

“It was hard work, but I don’t think I ever got to the point where I didn’t get excited about meeting with Kathy or writing my book,” Dickerson said. “It was so fun and I kept wanting to go write and write and write. Finishing the book inspired me to know that it’s doable. It might not be perfect, I have a lot of work to do and a lot to learn, but I like the learning process.”

Many teachers who work alongside Dickerson took note of how hard she worked to become a published author. Ashley Polancich, a first grade teacher at Bramlett Elementary, talked about how Dickerson’s determination and passion for teaching helped make it possible for her to achieve this accomplishment.

“Mary works constantly from January to July on anything school-related,” Polancich said. “It was amazing how she was able to balance her teaching job and writing a book on the side. She is also very passionate about finding ways to grow her students, and she knows they struggle to form complete sentences. She wants them to understand what she is teaching, and she was able to come up with something fun and engaging for the students to help them remember what subject, predicate, and onomatopoeia mean.”

Dickerson is a Professional Learning Community leader for second grade at Della Davidson Elementary, so she plans curriculums for the second grade teachers to follow. Kimberly Day, a second grade math teacher at Della Davidson Elementary, is a close colleague of Dickerson.

“She is very motivated and very passionate about education and what she teaches,” Day said. “I think she was the perfect person because she saw a need, and instead of asking what other people were going to do she began thinking about what she could do to meet that need. I think that is the perfect image of Mary Dickerson. If she sees a problem she is going to figure out a way to solve it, she is not going to sit back. She can do anything, she is superwoman.”

Many children’s books have a moral to their story, usually revolving around a theme of friendship, working together, or learning from mistakes. “A Tale of Two Friends” is similar in that it has an overarching theme of working as a team, but it also works to teach an extremely important grammar skill.

“I have never seen or read a book like Mary’s, but I think that is what makes her book so great,” Smith said. “That’s why more teachers need to be writing books because they know what the students need to learn. Teachers like Mary who publish books are not only helping their own students, they are also helping students across the nation or even across the
world.”

Shortly before her book was published, Dickerson did her first ever read aloud to her second grade class.

“Reading it to my class was the cherry on top,” Dickerson said. “My students were so excited about it and they understood it. That was the big thing for me. They understood what I am trying to teach them through the story, they got it. All of my questions, they got it. That is what inspired me to keep going.”

Becoming an author was unexpected for Dickerson, but her story is not over yet.

“I liked writing so much that I want this to be a series,” Dickerson said. “I have three future books in mind, and I am currently working on book two. The point of the first book was what a subject is and what a predicate is, but the next one will be about compound sentences. It will have the same characters, but there will be a new story about what happens when Subject and Predicate meet Conjunction. I’m really excited to work on this series and publish more books.”