Mrs. White’s Sub Snips
Are you a substitute teacher?
These humorous substitute teaching real life experiences show fun snapshots or ‘snips’ into the world in which all who sub, used to sub, or has had a sub can relate to. This paperback, which is intended for adults will give those that have substituted before or worked in schools some giggles. I have worked in schools for almost 20 years and enjoyed the lighthearted humor of the author. I have also never seen a book about substitute teachers and wanted to give a shout out of support for these teachers.
I included an interview with the author, Laura Moss White about her experience publishing the book and her challenges in being a substitute teacher.
To learn more about Laura, visit her website here.
Mrs. White’s SUB SNIPS: Substitute Teaching Cartoons From Real Life
About Author and Educator, Laura Moss White
Laura Moss White has been an educator for over twenty-five years with fifteen of those years being spent as a substitute teacher. Subs, Laura explains, are often overworked, unsupported, and underappreciated. Laura decided to use cartoon characters to tell her stories, giving her book a fun, easy-to-read, and relatable quality. Anyone who tortured a substitute when they were in school, which means just about everyone, will relate to Laura’s book.
Her day-to-day real-life experiences create captivating and humorous snapshots or ‘snips’ into the world in which all who sub, used to sub, or want to sub can relate. As Laura says:” Hooray for substitute teachers everywhere who keep the classrooms running when the regular teachers are absent. Subs are brave and creative!”
Interview with Laura Moss White
Tell me about your background as a substitute teacher and why you wrote the book, Mrs. White’s Sub Snips.
I started subbing in January of 1995 when my two daughters were old enough to go to school. I had my degree in education and was raising my family. Subbing is a great parent job. You have the same time schedule as your kids; you are off when your children are off, like during holidays, weekends, and the summer-time. Afterwards, when I was teaching full time, I, also subbed during the hard-hit times during the recession, when teachers, like myself, were pink slipped every year for about 5 years. I worked as a sub for a total of fifteen years over all. After working as a sub, there were 60 subbing experiences that stood out to me, and I felt the need to share them with others. I decided to tell my stories as cartoons to make it fun, easy-to-read, and relatable. Subs teachers are often overworked, unsupported, and underappreciated, and I wanted to pay tribute to them. Subs are brave men and women that keep the classrooms running when the teachers are absent.
Tell me about the process of publishing Mrs. White’s Sub Snips?
I had just gotten the cartoons done and had 4 cartoons made into large glossy posters to put up for my milestone birthday party. I made my book the theme of the party, and had put all of the cartoons into protector sheets and created a folder book to share with everyone there. I had invited close friends and colleagues. During my party, one of my friends, Annie Goldberg, who teaches a PAL’s class (Pre-School for All Learners) which is a Special Education Intervention Pre-School Class, offered to have my cartoons published by her husband, Jeff, who works with computers for a living, on to Amazon’s Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP). She said that he has helped others publish their books before, and invited me to come over to their home and get it done. I did just that, and it took a day and a half to get everything done correctly. I was very grateful and excited. It was a dream come true, and it happened so quickly and easily that I knew it was meant to be.
Who did the Illustrations?
Getting the cartoons done was my biggest challenge in writing this book. For many years, I tried to figure out how I was going to get the cartoons drawn up. I asked both of my daughters, who are good drawers, but they were not interested. I took a cartoon drawing class at Los Angeles City College and even asked the instructor if he was interested, but he was not. Over a period of ten years, I had asked many different people and tried different avenues, but nothing prevailed until last summer when I decided to try Upwork and hired a professional freelance cartoon illustrator, Caitlin Skaalrud, to do the cartoons. She was excellent.