A self-described “grown-up big kid,” Katie Carella was drawn to a career serving children. After graduating from Penn GSE’s Urban Teaching Residency program, she taught third grade in East Harlem and, later, English language arts to 60 first- through third-graders at a French bilingual school. Her two school communities were very different, but one thing was constant: it was a struggle to find books that got her students excited about reading.
So when Carella left the classroom, she turned her attention to children’s book publishing, eventually founding Scholastic’s Branches early chapter book imprint to fill a hole in the market where young readers—or older ones who are struggling—can access more sophisticated plots via books written on a second-grade reading level.
“The window of time we have to reach a new reader is very small,” she said. “Newly independent readers need, want, and deserve strong, complex storylines. We just need to be providing that content on their reading level.”
Branches books are created with the specific needs of newly independent readers in mind. They are 80 or 96 pages long and feature short chapters, high-concept plots, easy-to-read and decodable text, cliff-hanger chapter endings, and artwork on every page. The line launched in 2013, and a little over 10 years later, it has two New York Times bestselling series and more than 58 million books in print.
The success of Branches led Carella to birth its little sibling, Acorn, a line of books for those at a first-grade reading level. Acorn books have a unique, short-story format that helps beginning readers build confidence.
“I created these books for my former students,” Carella said. “They didn’t want to be seen with a babyish-looking, ‘level one’ book, because it labels you as not a good reader. I want every kid to feel confident as they’re growing in their reading skills.”
Carella gave us a tour of her Nashville home office and shared some of the many books that have influenced her career.
1. Balloon Goon artwork by Troy Cummings
One of Branches’ first series was The Notebook of Doom, in which a trio of friends battle wacky monsters. Working on that series has been one of the best collaborative experiences I’ve had with an author. People are often surprised that the editorial process is, at its heart, collaborative. My job is not to proofread your book; my job is to make your story as strong as it can be, to make sure the characters are fully developed, to make sure there’s enough engagement all the way through. And I was very intentional with the Branches format because of what I learned as a teacher. One of the small things I think about, that most editors don’t think about, is I make sure there’s never a sentence that goes over a page turn. Every time I was doing a reading assessment with a student, whenever the page turn came, it always made them pause and reread. So that’s just something you’ll never see in a Branches book.
2. Kwame’s Magic Quest: Rise of the Green Flame
Branches has 33 different series and more than 220 titles. It’s amazing to watch these books really turn kids onto reading, which has been my goal all along. I had a student who was walking around carrying a Harry Potter book, and yet I knew they were only on a second-grade reading level. So, I like to say Kwame’s Magic Quest is for that kid who isn’t ready to read Harry Potter. Book choice is the most important thing when you’re trying to get kids to read. Me noticing that kid who wants to read Harry Potter tells me, “OK, this kid loves magic and really wants to dive into a rich, fantasy world.” Being able to give a child a book on their reading level that matches their interests is key.
3. Matilda
Roald Dahl was my favorite author as a child. My third-grade teacher, Mrs. Waddington, read this book to our class, and it is what I credit with making me a reader. I was like, “I have to read everything this author wrote.” So, when I became a teacher, it was a full-circle moment when I read Matilda to my third-grade class in East Harlem, and they loved it! My students kept asking, “Can I borrow it tonight? I gotta read ahead.”
4. Mister Shivers: Beneath the Bed and Other Scary Stories
This Acorn book is a scary stories collection, and it was an acquisition that felt like a victory because it was hard-fought. I actually brought it to our acquisitions meeting three different times. It was rejected twice. In the meeting, colleagues would say, “Oh, that’s too scary for my kid.” “My kid wouldn’t be able to sleep at night.” I was frustrated by the feedback, because not every kid is your kid, and there is a kid who needs this book. I also feel, in today’s world, there are a lot of scary things happening, and we need to help children learn how to self soothe. Giving them safe scares, like this, is so important, because they learn, “OK, that was scary. I’m gonna put this book under my pillow.” Or, “What I need right now is a hug from mom or my stuffy.” It is important to give children that practice.
5. Dear Genius: The Letters of Ursula Nordstrom
Ursula Nordstrom was a trailblazing children’s book editor from 1940 to 1973. She edited such classics as Goodnight Moon, Charlotte’s Web, and Where the Wild Things Are. At that time, children’s books usually had morals or taught lessons. But she came in and published books she referred to as “good books for bad children.” Dear Genius holds her editorial letters to and from Maurice Sendak and other book creators she worked with over the years. Even though people may not know her name, she has grown countless readers through the books she published. She did not have children, and yet knew exactly what children wanted and, in giving it to them, changed so many children’s lives. When I’m thinking about whether I’m qualified enough to make decisions about which books should be acquired, it is helpful to hear her voice. She was once asked why she felt qualified to edit children’s books, and her response was, “Well, I am a former child, and I haven’t forgotten a thing.”
Read this story and more in the fall/winter 2025 issue of Penn GSE Magazine.
Photo by Daniel Meigs.
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