This past February, Emma Muchow, a junior media and communication major, and Marissa Terech, a junior Spanish and early education dual major, began the process of creating and publishing a children’s bilingual poetry book, Pigtales and Poemas with Mia la Cerdita. Since the self-publication of their book in August, they’ve been heavily involved in community outreach with local elementary schools to promote multilingual storytelling. They’ve additionally created a donation campaign to provide a copy of their book to students in the Rochester City School District.
Terech was inspired by the fourth grade bilingual students she student-taught, leading her to create poems for them in Spanish and English. When she presented the poems to Muchow, who has a background in graphic design, the two discussed the potential of merging their skills to create a children’s bilingual storybook.
Both Honors students, Muchow and Terech decided to turn this idea, initially a passion project, into their keystone project. “It started as an Honors keystone collaboration, and then I was like, ‘what if I illustrate it and we have a character?’ and that’s when we came up with [Mia] the pig,” Muchow said. Their project differs from traditional keystone projects, which are typically research-based. Terech explained that while their project leans more on the creative side, it still meets the project criteria and explores their academic interests while also contributing to the community.
With the introduction of Mia the Pig to their project, Terech and Muchow worked on trimming down and revising the poems to create an empowering narrative around their new main character.
Their book comes at a time where there are few original bilingual stories on shelves. “The critical period [for children’s development] ends at age seven. So, from zero to seven is the most important time for language development,” Terech said. “We teach language at the exact opposite time in high school … that’s how important literacy is; reading at such a young age, finding books that are cute and have inspiring stories that [children] can relate to.”
The authors spent the summer keeping the process moving. While Muchow worked diligently on illustrating, Terech gave her time to developing their website. With her passion for education, Terech designed a workbook to supplement the poems for the purpose of lesson planning for teachers, later making it available to the public for purchase. Terech also composed a bilingual theme song on the viola, accessible on their website, with sheet music available in the workbook.
I think that’s one of our biggest hidden messages that we might not have realized, but it’s following your dreams. Literally like, ‘when pigs fly’… and that’s what we did.
Muchow and Terech never relied on publication as an outcome at the conclusion of this project. “I could never see it as finished,” Terech said. “I had to step back … if it’s meant for us, if we really believe it’s going to happen, then it’s going to happen.”
Muchow and Terech published their book under a company name they created themselves, Pigtail Publishing. They explained that many skills they developed during the process of this project, including publication, were self-taught. While they believe their book would have eventually been picked up by an established publisher, they valued the principle of owning full rights to their work. However, they are open to the possibility of animating their story for television in the future. “I’ve always been fascinated with PBS,” Terech said. “I would love to have some type of collaboration with that in the future.”
The authors have been collecting donations in order to provide a copy of their book to RCSD students. Each $6 contribution pays for the printing of a single book which will then put it in the hands of a local student. With donations from Wraithmarked Creative LLC, a local publishing company, and other community members, Muchow and Terech have been able to donate approximately 200 books to students, classrooms, and school libraries.
“With authors and illustrators, no matter what they’re paid, it’s never enough money for the amount of time they’ve spent, so the passion is what drives it,” Muchow said. “If you don’t have the passion to do that or the passion to get community outreach, then usually people don’t even try to write or illustrate a book.”
Aside from sharpening the Spanish skills of today’s youth, Muchow and Terech strongly hope to empower students through various themes of confidence, courage, perseverance, and dedication found in each poem. While they have been working closely with the community through library and classroom visits to promote dual-language literacy and literature accessibility, they hope these students grow to understand the importance of giving back to the institutions that shape society.
“Maybe they might be too young to understand the community engagement part of it and how it’s benefiting them, but I think what they are understanding is they can follow their dreams like we did,” said Terech. “I think that’s one of our biggest hidden messages that we might not have realized, but it’s following your dreams. Literally like, ‘when pigs fly’… and that’s what we did.”
“I think it reflects on Fisher as a whole,” Muchow said. “This isn’t just an assignment from a classroom, we came up with it ourselves. No one’s telling us to do this, we decided to.”
Muchow hopes their project inspires other Fisher students to find ways to give back to the community as well.
To donate a copy of Pigtales and Poemas to an RCSD student, visit mialacerdita.com.
Muchow and Terech hope to expand the availability of their book beyond Amazon and the United States, and have been discussing the possibility of creating another book after graduation.
A version of this article was published on St. John Fisher University’s News & Events website.
