Sean Connelly has used the playful term “ish Kabibble” to refer to himself over the years, so when his wife, Amy R. Connelly, began teaching about 13 years ago she told her young students they could call her Amy or Shish Kabibble.
“I added the ‘shish’ because it is so silly to listen to the kids trying to say ‘shish Kabibble,’” the Montague resident said.
So when she thought about naming the characters in her illustrations, “Kabibbles” seemed the logical choice.
Connelly’s newly published “Kabibbles 1-2-3” is a learning book for toddler and early pre-school levels. She uses rhyme, repetition and silly critters to catch a child’s attention and help in the recognition of their first numbers.
“We can teach in every little thing we do. With numbers, count how many stairs you walk up together, how many legs does a hoppy frog have, how many eyes do you have, how many nose holes, how many toes, how many ears,” said the author who is a pre-school teacher for The Early Learning Center at Deerfield Academy.
The 1-2-3 book is Connelly’s second, though the first, an ABC book, is getting a few redo’s but is about ready to publish.
During COVID, she spent a lot of her time with book illustrations and writing. She created two complete stories and one with two more drawings to go. A fourth is still mostly in her head.
Her inspiration is her granddaughters, Cosette, 7, and Lily, 5 — their parents are both teachers. “My granddaughters are so funny and creative and beautiful,” she said. “I wanted to give them something that would make them smile and see in a book what ‘Memere’ (French word for grandmother) does all the time, which is making Kabibbles.”
She used a couple of uncommon sayings like topsy-turvy in the book. “You have a picture of an upside down Kabibble, and I say he is ‘topsy-turvy.’ Alternative word use, vocabulary,” she described. “My grandmother used to tell me to ‘pull up your breeches.’ I use that saying in pre-school. The children learn that their pants can be called breeches too.”
During the pandemic, Connelly took time off from work to care for her granddaughters. “Cosette is in second grade and attended school on (and under) my dining room table, and Lily and I spent the year getting ready for kindergarten,” she said. “COVID also gave me the time to sit outside and draw. I moved my picnic table to the front of my house, and after the kids went home, I would grab all my drawing things and sit outside and draw and watch my neighborhood come alive.”
Connelly said everyone should take on the mantel of teachers: “We can teach our young the ABC’s and numbers and be kind to each other, but we can do the same for each other as adults. I want to give adults the opportunity to provide service and compassion to the struggling in our community. I am a firm believer that if you break down that invisible wall and sit and talk around a table with food, so much can be learned and so many stigmas can disappear when you talk face to face.”
In addition to being a wife, mother, grandmother, teacher, author and illustrator, Connelly has worked since 1984 in the soup kitchens and food pantry sponsored by the Franklin County Community Meals Program. “The Community Meals during COVID became a very consuming job, but one that was needed in our community,” Connelly said. “I went from running the smallest soup kitchen in Franklin County (45 people each week) to the largest in a few short months. Having a hot meal and grocery bag distribution each week in the front of Our Lady of Peace Church (in Turners Falls), keeping to COVID regulations was hard enough. Our numbers jumped from 45 in January indoors to 200 in July outdoors each week.”
The Turners Falls community provided grocery bag food, volunteers and monetary donations. “The Franklin County Community Meals were supportive and organized and (the program and) Our Lady of Peace Church were great partners. We are very proud of what we have done during this very tough period,” Connelly said.
A portion of the quarterly proceeds of “Kabibbles 1-2-3” will be donated to The Franklin County
Community Meals Program.
Connelly would like to make Kabibbles into learning tools for the classroom.
“Kabibbles 1-2-3” is available online in the IUniverse book store, Amazon books and Barnes and Noble.
30