Written by Kathy S. Miller
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In A Spicy Little Dream is a message for all students, teachers, administrators, and parents. Spicy has lost his gifts and his creativity sitting in a boring classroom day after day with a teacher who is burnt out and does not care anymore. His teacher Mrs. Salsa likes everyone the same. She wants all the worksheets done and wants journal writing to be about the weather. Mrs. Salsa is not interested in Spicy's ideas and prefers that he just remain quiet.She believes that all children should be blended together and no one should stand out in any way. She especially hates that Spicy wants to share new ideas. Mr. Taco the bus driver tells Spicy of the way schools used to be before a monster called "testing" took over. Spicy learns to take himself out of this dreary classroom in his daydreams. One day he imagines the perfect classroom where children have fun learning and the teacher enjoys teaching. He dreams of a new school that is bright and cheery. On this particular day his dreams become reality when he stands up for what is right and shares his dream with his principal, only to find out that she has also had the same dream! She had no idea who the student in her dream was. The principal listens to Spicy and immediately calls a parent meeting for that very night. Changes come fast and the school climate changes. The students still cannot believe the changes and are very grateful to Spicy. Mrs. Salsa becomes her true loving self and remembers what teaching is all about.
Readers will identify with Spicy's struggles and dreams. A Spicy Little Dream is a wonderful children's book, teacher inservice tool, a resource for gifted education and a great gift for your favorite teacher!
Kathy Miller grew up in Delaware, New Mexico, and parts of Texas. She was a writer in her early days with a notebook as her constant companion. Her first experience in publishing was in the sixth grade when her play was chosen and performed by the school district drama department. In high school she was on the school paper and was a photographer as well. After graduating from the University of Texas in Edinburg she begin teaching gifted children in a small town in Texas. She has taught in several schools across Texas and has a passion for writing. She has published several units with Menagerie Publishing in Challenge Magazine and Above and Beyond Magazine and enjoys writing stories, poems, and novel units in her spare time.
She has taught classes for twenty years in the field of gifted education and is a presenter at the Texas Association of the Gifted and Talented Annual Conferences. Mrs. Miller has a degree in Elementary Education and a Master's Degree in Educational Administration. She currently teaches in a pull-out program for gifted students.
Mrs. Miller lives in Harlingen, Texas with her husband Rick. Her three daughters are grown and all of them are in the field of education.
Spicy the little jalapeno drooped around slowly getting ready for school. He could hear his mother and his brothers eating breakfast. His dad had left when Spicy was still sleeping for his job at the local canning plant near his home. Normally Spicy would be anxious to get to school but this year had been very different. His teacher Mrs. Salsa did not seem to like him very much. This broke the little jalapeno’s heart.
On Monday when he had suggested a new way to complete the math problem she had written on the board, she had stared angrily at him. She kept staring and Spicy finally mumbled something about being wrong and bent his head down to his work. He really hated all the repetition in school this year. There seemed to be nothing to do but more and more worksheets .
His teacher said it was because they were getting ready for next year. Spicy thought that was very strange as they had just started the new school year. He wondered why they just couldn’t be third graders and learn fun things. He really was upset by all the tests and worksheets. Not that he was a bad student. No, Spicy thought that he was just a bored student. He had some great ideas for things his class could explore but Ms. Salsa told him no one cared what he thought. The crushing feeling was so real when she said this that he thought he would truly disappear under the weight. If this were true than why did his parents always tell him to use his gifted brain and be his best? Maybe his parents were not as smart as he thought. Maybe he wasn’t so gifted after all.
