Lawrence Kids Spring, '23

Lawrence Kids

Spring 2023 free

Cover photo by Amber Yoshida

920 Mass

785.843.1110

Seasonal Readings

by Dan Coleman from the Lawrence Public Library

The Tiny Seed, by Eric Carle

One of the first and best books by the legendary Eric Carle echoes the parable of the sower in the journey of a tiny seed blown in the wind. Some seeds fly too close to the sun, others freeze atop mountains or drown in the ocean, but the tiny seed keeps going until it grows into the tallest flower anyone has ever seen.

Don’t Touch That Flower, by Alice Hemming, illustrated by Nicola

Slater

The squirrel who doesn’t quite get it is back to take on spring. As he did with falling leaves in The Leaf Thief, he misinterprets all the signs of the season and tries to protect a tiny flower from the sun, rain, and bees he thinks will hurt it. Hemming and Slater’s cartoonish odes have become some of the most popular and funniest seasonal books on the shelf.

What’s Inside a Flower?, by Rachel Ignotofsky

Petals, sepals, pistils, stamens; this one has all that good stuff and more. Former Kansas Citian Rachel Ignotofsky, who launched her career as a nonfiction picture book rockstar with Women in Science and The Wondrous Workings of Planet Earth after a stint at Hallmark, sticks to the facts but makes them beautiful in her distinctive style.

A Tulip in Winter: A Story about Folk Artist Maud Lewis, by Kathy Stinson, illustrated by Lauren Soloy

Nova Scotian folk artist Maud Lewis covered every surface in sight with bright paintings, often of flowers. This book tells the story of her life, which was not easy. She suffered rheumatoid arthritis and struggled to make ends meet, but her colorful art, created in defiance of pain, radiates hope.

Humongous Fungus, by Lynne Boddy, illustrated by Wenjia Tang

Why stick to flowers with so much fungus among us? This compendium of mushrooms, molds, and yeasts, published by British nonfiction king Dorling Kindersley, provides a feast for the eyes (even if you wouldn’t want to eat some of the varieties pictured). A great book to read with kids before or after taking them on a hunt for morels along the Kansas River trails.

City Beet, by Tziporah Cohen, illustrated by Udayana Lugo

How about a new symbol of spring to grow alongside seeds, flowers, and mushrooms? In this comical modern take on the Russian “enormous turnip” folktale, a young girl and her retired neighbor plant a packet of beet seeds. When one grows into a behemoth, the whole community must pull together to get it out of the ground.

Cranky Chicken, by Katherine Battersby

There are a lot of cute chicks hatching out of those eggs each spring, but let’s get real: every kid (and parent) needs to know what to do when they become cranky chickens. A friendly worm named Speedy cheers up Battersby’s antihero via comical banter a la Mo Willems’s Elephant and Piggie

Sunshine Makes the Seasons, by Franklyn M. Branley, illustrated by Michael Rex

Have this one handy in case anyone asks what spring actually is. It comes complete with a cool (and easy) science demonstration using a pencil, orange, and flashlight to explain the Earth’s tilt and orbit (which also prepares you for the months ahead, when you may need to answer why summer, fall, and winter happen, too).

Sakura’s Cherry Blossoms, by Robert Paul Weston, illustrated by Misa Saburi

This quiet tale of a young Japanese girl whose name means “cherry blossom,” and her grandmother, whom she calls Obaachan, is written in the traditional Japanese tanka poetic form. When Sakura immigrates to the United States, she misses her grandmother and the cherry blossoms of her hometown until she makes a friend. Since, as Weston writes, “watching cherry blossoms bloom is always finest with friends,” a picnic in late March/early April beneath the cherry blossoms around town may be in order. They can be found on the campus of KU in front of Strong Hall, and also in the small pocket park north of the Watkins Museum of History.

A Warbler’s Journey, by Scott Weidensaul, illustrated by Nancy Lane

Here’s another “read-and-do.” Scott Weidensaul’s books for adults on birding and bird migration are some of the best in print, and now he has written this fictionalized account of a yellow warbler’s journey from Nicaragua to Canada’s Northwest Territories. Young birders should be able to spot a yellow warbler (among other species passing through) from mid-April to mid-May in Lawrence at Burcham Park, the Rotary Arboretum, and the Baker Wetlands.

Chirp, by Mary Murphy

Author-illustrator Mary Murphy’s books feel like a hug. Her clean lines and bright colors are a perfect match for the subject at hand here: the chirping birds at the break of a new day. Murphy is a Dubliner, so there are magpies instead of crows, and the book’s robins are the English kind, but no matter the bird, because, as she writes, “We all have a song!”

BRACES LIFESTYLE to fit your

HOW TO

NEVER GROW UP!

by Richard Renner

My whole life and career as a children’s performer has been me trying to stay in a childlike frame of mind. With more than thirty-five years of childish behavior in mind, here are some tips for doing that. You decide which ones work for you.

Stay curious. Check out the bugs on the sidewalk. Postpone judgment and just wonder.

Trying to make something? Drop the first thought, and go for the second... or third. Go to the point of the absurd. Kids do this all the time: how else does a Barney doll become a space invader at a Barbie hotel on the moon?

Sing out loud and make up your own words. In show biz, it’s more important to SELL a song than to SING it. Be a star in your own show.

Don’t eat what you don’t like. When did broccoli become okay? And when did we decide coffee tastes good? Trust your gut, and your tongue.

Sit on the floor instead of a chair. But first, make sure you can get back up.

Why walk when you can skip? If you can’t skip, just hop for a moment.

7. Laugh hard every chance you get. Giggle a lot, too. If you wet yourself, even better.

All these tips can be summarized in this: make time to play! When you make play your priority you will overlook differences in your playmates. Kids don’t care what you look like as long as you play with them.

Life is too mysterious, don’t take it serious.

Richard Renner is a long-time performing artist and producer of the Lawrence Busker Festival. He is also the director for the City Play Corps, a new nonprofit that makes pop up adventure playgrounds where kids are in charge of every decision made.

The Flemming’s

Seasonal Essentials

Tyler and Marne Fleming, with kids Gus (5) and Rex (3), are always in motion. By day, Tyler is the GIS manager for Douglas County and Marne is a school counselor at Southwest Middle School. When not at work, they do their best to keep up with Gus and Rex.

photos by Amber Yoshida

1. Bike rides on the levee trail. Our oldest, Gus, loves to ride on the tag-along attached to my bike now that he can reach the pedals, and Rex enjoys riding in the bike trailer and holding all the snacks.

2. Walking to our favorite neighborhood parks. Some of our favorites include South Park, the park at the East Lawrence Rec Center, and Burroughs Creek Park, especially once the splash pad is on for the summer!

3. Scootering on the Burroughs Trail. This trail is so kid friendly, with tons of shade and water fountains along the way.

4. Ice Cream at Sylas and Maddy’s. Our boys’ favorite is the Cookie Monster in a sprinkle cone (but don’t ask them to share)!

5. Saturday morning soccer at YSC. Get there early to avoid the crazy traffic!

6. Shopping at the Farmers’ Market. We love stocking up on fresh produce and the boys always seem to find a snack or two.

7. Happy Hour (kid friendly!) on Lawrence Beer Company’s patio. Bring a soccer ball for the green space and make sure to try the pretzel bites!

8. Slinging Marne Made wares across town. There are tons of great pop-ups in the spring at different coffee shops, stores, and venues across town. Usually one weekend a month you can find me and my small jewelry business popped up selling my handmade accessories. Check me out on Instagram: @Marne. Made.

Ready for Good

Furniture Store

Addison Shockley had an idea to combine his passion for helping kids and lackluster history as a furniture salesman. Ready for Good, which strives to prepare kids aging out of the foster care system, is the result.

Addison Shockley shouldn’t be running a furniture store. He had his chance long ago and wanted nothing to do with the business.

“I grew up in the furniture business,” Shockley says with a laugh. “My parents owned a very successful store and I worked for them through high school. I was, without a doubt, the worst employee they ever had. I hated it.”

Fast forward a decade or so to today. Addison Shockley is standing in the middle of Ready for Good, the furniture store he launched in 2022.

“I think it’s kind of funny that this is what I do now,” Shockley jokes. “I’m just glad I can take the lessons I learned in my parent’s store and use them to make a small difference.”

Shockley’s shop is, by all accounts, a normal furniture store. The building at 708 Connecticut Street is bursting with couches and chairs and end tables and staff float around helping customers. While the business sells furniture, the purpose of the store isn’t to increase profit margins on mid-century pieces.

Ready for Good is a nonprofit social enterprise furniture store providing hope, training, and mentorship for youth who are making the difficult transition to adulthood while growing up in the foster care or juvenile justice system, as well as unhoused youth. All proceeds go to providing services for transition-age youth in need of work experience, job readiness training, life skills workshops, and mentorship.

“Selling furniture is the cover,” Shockley explains. “We’re trying to enhance the lives of those that work here.”

Shockley’s previous professional life was working with individuals in foster care and those in the juvenile justice system. After years working through the system, he kept noticing a common hurdle for people aging out of the system: getting a job, with little or no experience, was incredibly difficult. Kids in foster care or the juvenile justice system, more often than not, have unstable schedules and a lack of reliable transportation to get and maintain most entry-level jobs. One day, while visiting his parents’ store, he had an idea.

“I saw a guy putting together furniture and it just occurred to me that I could do something to help these kids,” Shockley says. “It became clear I could use what I know about the furniture store industry and working with these kids to really make a difference. I starting researching grants immediately and checking the boxes needed to make this store happen. I called in favors from family and friends, found the space, and we opened a year ago.”

The basis of the business is to hire, train, and mentor eight youths per quarter. The youth in

Addison Shockley on the Ready for Good sales floor.

the program receive job training, basic education in business, customer service lessons, and learn about every aspect of the business while earning a paycheck. One day they might work the floor and help customers and the next they are putting together pieces for the sales floor.

Shockley takes an increased interest in working with the kids and increasing their comfort with the idea of working in a service industry.

“There’s so much young people with challenging backgrounds can learn from working in a shop like this,” he says. “Sometimes just building the confidence to approach someone in the store is a big win for the week, and we celebrate all wins.”

The majority of the furniture received in the shop requires minor assembly. Staff use the open area at the back of the building to process deliveries and construct pieces for the showroom floor. Opening a box, seeing a mess of pieces and turning that into a sellable piece of furniture, often with no instructions included, is a concrete, satisfying accomplishment, Shockley says. Building on those small victories compounds over time and, as confidence builds, so do responsibilities.

The business side of the store is strong, Shockley says. Though the store is a nonprofit, the goal is never to lose money. In its first year, Ready for Good has done well. Shockley secured a strong

grant to get the business off the ground and the advice from his parents (and brother, who also runs a furniture store) has proven to be valuable. While the business is a nonprofit, the furniture is not secondhand nor is it second-rate. The store’s website will often list items for sell and cross-list them with comparable pieces from other dealers.

“We rely on grants, of course,” Shockley says. “But we also sell really nice pieces here. I’m proud of the furniture on the floor. In addition to the pieces for sale, we have big plans to make this a family center where parents can bring their young kids in to play while they shop for a piece of furniture. We’re just getting started here.”

Ready for Good is working to fill a hole in the Lawrence furniture market while serving a purpose greater than loading tables into the back of customer’s trucks. Shockley is dedicated to using the business to give kids aging out a much-needed boost.

“Everything we do in the program is focused on building these youth into more employable young adults,” he says. “These kids are facing some scary times ahead. I hope they leave the program with a greater sense of self and increased confidence. Maybe the most important thing they can leave this experience with is a reference to list on their next job application. That can be huge and we’re doing all we can to add skills that can be listed on a resume.”

Two kingdoms, divided. Will the royals from each kingdom find a way to bring balance to both?

and, of course…sharing snacks.

“Our Dad is a STAR!!”

Mr. Beat, YouTube Star!

Matt Beat has created a thriving YouTube channel with hundreds of thousands of followers and millions and millions of views.

Too bad his kids aren’t photosimpressed.

by Amber Yoshida

“Actually, he’s a boring history nerd.”

Matt Beat, boring dad.

There’s a great scene in one of Mr. Beat’s YouTube videos where he plans a day trip to the Dwight D. Eisenhower Presidential Library in Abilene. “Are you excited to go today?” Matt Beat asks expectedly as his young daughters are getting in the car.

Sheepishly, his older daughter Lydia asks where they are going. After Beat explains, she replies with a less-than-enthusiastic attitude.

“You always want to go to the history things,” she says.

“Yeah, they’re fun,” Beat says with the same tone all dads use when trying to convince their children to do something.

“No, they’re not,” she replies.

So it goes for Lawrence’s most popular YouTube star. He has more than 750,000 subscribers and more than 150 million views, but Matt still isn’t cool to his daughters.

“You know, that’s okay,” Beat says with a laugh. “I understand kids aren’t suppose to think their dad is cool. I mean, I make videos about history, so maybe it’s not very cool.”

Matt Beat’s channel, Mr. Beat, hosts the history videos he has been making since he was a middle school teacher. For more than a decade he’s been using the social media platform to make history more approachable, and digestible, for a wide audience. His deadpan delivery and self-effacing production has gained fans around the globe, a far cry from his beginning days.

“I was teaching middle school history and needed a way to engage the kids,” Beat explains. “I knew they loved online videos so I thought maybe I could make some lessons more interesting with a video.”

Beat applied the video editing skills he learned in college and honed them while making videos for his old band to produce educational videos that compliment his lesson plans. The first few videos went over well with his students, so he made some more. Then something interesting started to happen.

“I noticed the views on the videos started growing well beyond the kids in class,” Beat explains. “I realized other teachers were using them in their classes. That was pretty exciting—to think other people found the videos useful.”

Beat continued to produce videos series on presidential elections in American history, Supreme Court briefs, and comparing different topics, while also featuring songs about almost all the presidents. Though the income from ad revenue was a nice supplement to his teaching income, it wasn’t until 2020 when things really took a turn. As the world sat home during the pandemic, Mr. Beat kept producing videos. As revenue increased, something became clear.

“I realized I was making more from YouTube than from teaching,” Beat admits. “Shannon and I decided I could really do this and make it a full-time job.”

Shannon Beat, Matt’s wife, handles the business side of Mr. Beat—securing ads and handling media request—while Matt researches, records, and edits a video a week.

“I think people have the idea that it’s pretty easy for Matt to produce these videos,” Shannon Beat explains. “Maybe it’s because of how casual he is in the videos, but I know how hard he works on these. I can hear him sometimes when he’s recording and he’ll say the same line over and over until he gets it just how he wants it. It’s a lot more time consuming than many think. He works hard.”

Matt Beat explains that research for videos can be tedious (have you ever tried to research every president’s favorite drink?), but it’s a labor of love. He is, after all, a history nerd and loves to help others learn. The main goal of his growing YouTube reach isn’t financial.

“I want to help spread empathy,” Beat says. “That’s really it. I’ve made videos about some controversial topics and received some nasty hate mail and that is kind of astonishing. If I can help spread some knowledge I think that can go a long way to making people more empathetic. That can go a long way to making our communities better.”

While Matt and Shannon Beat are thrilled with the success of the Mr. Beat channel (Matt also has a great second channel, The Beat Goes On, which focuses on music), Matt does miss standing in front of a classroom full of students.

“Yes, I miss it from time to time,” Beat admits. “That’s why I love to stream, because it gives me an opportunity to interact with my viewers, who are often like students.”

Matt and Shannon Beat joke that he has become what most kids dream about these days: an online influencer. Their two daughters don’t see it the same way. While Lydia and Reegan have been in videos (see the video: Driving the Oregon Trail in a Tesla), Matt and Shannon don’t include them in most videos.

“They understand what Matt does and have been involved in some fun videos,” Shannon Beat explains. “But we don’t want them to be too involved. And, to be fair, they don’t really want to be in a video about a presidential election in the 1800s.”

As the Mr. Beat channel grows, it’s not uncommon for him to be recognized while around town with his family. Beat appreciates people supporting him, but his daughters are less amused.

“I do get recognized from time to time,” Beat says with a laugh. “My daughters aren’t that impressed.” LK

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DIY

KEY WIND CHIME

Welcome the spring breeze with subtle chimes. Get the kids, grab the supplies, and soundtrack the season with a DIY wind chime.

MATERIALS / Keys / Stick / String / Scissors / Key Ring HOW TO /

1. Search outside for a stick about the size of a ruler. 2. After you’ve found a stick, search your home for old keys that are no longer of use. If you don’t have a stack of keys waiting to be repurposed, local hardware stores are usually more than happy to get rid of discarded keys if asked nicely. 3. Cut a piece of string about six to eight inches longer than your stick and tie each end to the stick. If you’d like to hang your wind chime from a key ring, slide your key ring on the string before tying off the ends. 4. Lay your keys in the arrangement you’d like them to be hung and tie each key to the stick using string. 5. Double knot for durability, cut the excess string, and your wind chime is ready to ring in the spring season.

Story and Photos by Rebecca Zarazan Dunn