The Secret Lives of Kids
Or, My Time Spent with Class Bullies, SPED Students, and the Most Splendid Group of Kids in the World
My book with the same title as this post is now available in paperback here; the Kindle edition is here. This is the “special project” I have been working on that has prevented me from doing more than creating the “shells” of the daily “Mysteries of History ” posts for the last couple of weeks.
This is how I, in a nutshell, describe my book:
“The Secret Lives Of Kids, Or: My Time Spent with Class Bullies, SPED Students, and the Most Splendid Group of Kids in the World” is a chronicle of six months spent first as a glorified babysitter/proxy grandfather of neurotypical 1st and 2nd graders, and then as a Behavior Technician of developmentally disabled (mostly autistic) children. Known as “Grandpa” to many of the kids I came to dearly love and who loved me in return, I herein reveal the often funny and sometimes surprising things that occurred in 17 classrooms and a few playgrounds at ten schools in Monterey, Seaside, and Marina, California during the 2024/2025 school year.
Here are both covers of the paperback edition:
…and here is the cover of the Kindle edition:
The schools at which I worked are shown below. The “3” pushpin (MLK) is hard to see — it’s the yellow one. I reside between “2” and “9” near the Monterey airport.
Here are the “runner-up” (no pun intended) cover images; the picture I ultimately selected for the cover is the one shown first, at the top above:
Note: The names of everyone mentioned in the book have been changed (i.e., that of my coworkers, the teachers, the parents, but most importantly the kids — they will probably be able to recognize themselves in the book, but they can keep their identities secret if they choose to do that); the only people whose real names are used in the book are me and my family (as well as famous people, such as writers, poets, musicians, etc.).
To read the Preface and Foreword, click or tap here.
Following are a few images that are scenes from the book (which would have been included in the book had I used color images in it [the only image besides the cover, and the only one that is on the inside of the book, is the map of the locations of the schools where I worked, shown above]):
The images above and below are the only non-Monte Vista-inspired ones (JC Crumpton above, Ione Olson below)
Harper Jane Hansen saying, “Mr Clay!”