Laura Matuszewski, special education teacher at Isaac Fox Elementary School, never set out to write a book. She set out to share an explanation.

Matuszewski recently self-published a book called A Special Friend, which helps to explain how children with special needs are just like children in general education classes, but they just learn a little differently. About.com has nominated her book, which one of her former students illustrated, for the 2013 Readers’ Choice Award for Favorite New Special Needs Children’s Book. 

“A lot of my students would go into regular education classrooms for part of the day. All went for PE, music, art, and library. A couple went for actual subjects like social studies and science,” Matuszewski said.  “There was never really a conversation that took place with the kids in the general education class as to why my students were only coming to spend part of the day with them.”

Matuszewski wanted to explain to the children in the general education class that her students were just like them. In this rhyming picture book, she gave examples of some of the things both special education and general education students do, like play games and attend to school.  Matuszewski hoped hearing this would help bridge the gap between her class and the general education students.  The book did not start as a book though; it started as words on a sheet of loose leaf.

“One night the words just came to me. And I shared the words that I had on a piece of notebook paper with the [general education] class that my students would be going in with. I kind of explained to them some of the things my students might need help with, like finding a page number. That type of thing,” she said.  “And we kind of just had a conversation about some special challenges they have and some of the things they could do to be helpful, and it led to a really great discussion.”

Giving the general education students an explanation seemed to help, and she saw a difference in the classroom.

“After I read them the words, I noticed a big change in how they treated my students,” Matuszewski said. “They were a lot more likely to go up to them, or invite them to play at recess. They were really helpful, they said hello in the hallway, and they really became a lot friendlier. They didn’t treat them differently.”

 Since the conversation went so well, she showed her piece of paper to teachers and parents, who encouraged her to make her sheet of notebook paper a real book. She also decided to include discussion guides for teachers and parents in the back of her book to help them start a conversation with their own kids.

“With the world of education going into full inclusion (special education students going into a general education class), [special education students] have more exposure to general education students, and as that shift takes place, those [general education] students really need to understand those [special education] students are just like them,” Matuszewski said.  “They just have some learning difficulties, and it doesn’t mean [the general education students] shouldn’t be friends with them. In fact, it’s so important to be friends with them because they’re really good role models, and [the special education students] learn really good social aspects they wouldn’t be able to learn from their teachers.”

A very unique part about A Special Friend is the illustrations.  One of Matuszewski’s former students who has Autism Spectrum Disorder, Mikayla, drew every picture in the book.  She is not in Matuszewski’s class this year, but had been for three years.

“She was a student at the time. She wants to be an artist when she grows up, and she has some really beautiful drawings,” Matuszewski said.  “When you look at her pictures, they make you happy and they make you smile. And we always looked forward to looking at her pictures because they were so great.”

After she asked Mikayla’s mother for permission, it took Matuszewski almost a full school year to gather enough of Mikayla’s drawings for the book.

“[Mikayla’s mother] was overjoyed. She thought it was fantastic. Her mom would collect the ones she did at home and send them in, and we did a writing project every day in class where they would write sentences and then have to draw a picture to go with them,” Matuszewski said. “My assistant and I just saved all the pictures. When the book was ready to go and we thought we had enough samples, we started matching up the pictures with the words.”

Matuszewski self published her own book and has been her own publicity agent.  She has had several interviews with places such as WGN and 101.9 FM The Mix, and is now competing against four other books for the 2013 Readers’ Choice Award for Favorite New Special-Needs Children’s Book. She is currently in the lead by seven percent (as of publication date). 

“I could not believe [I was nominated]. I found [the website] when I was trying to figure out how to get my book out there to the target audience, and I wrote to the person who maintains it, and she wrote about it in her blog,” Matuszewski said.  “When I was on the site I noticed different awards. When I reached out to them, I saw one of the awards was for a children’s book, and I remember thinking to myself, ‘That’s so cool. What an honor that would be.’ Right after the WGN interview, I found out it was nominated. I still have no idea who nominated it. To me, it’s such a huge honor and I’m thrilled.  It’s a huge dream come true.”

Matuszewski also wanted the book to have a charitable aspect.  A percent of every book sale is donated to the new Lurie Children’s Hospital of Chicago.

“At the time, Children’s Memorial was becoming Lurie Children’s, and they were building a brand new hospital from the ground up and I knew they would need a lot of money,” she said.  “In addition to that, several of the students I have worked with have gone to that hospital. At the time one of my students was receiving a lot of care from them. All my students are kids, and that’s an amazing hospital for kids, so I felt that some way they could all benefit if the money went there.”

To vote, go to http://specialchildren.about.com/b/2013/02/19/vote-for-favorite-new-special-needs-childrens-book-2.htm. Voting closes March 19, 2013 and the winner will be announced March 27, 2013.