Their real lives read almost like a storybook, but the picture books Rodney and Sasha Glassman create inspire children to improve the real world.
The two met in law school at the University of Arizona, but didn’t start dating until after they saw each other on J-Date. Sasha, 31, a corporate attorney, and Rodney, 34, a businessman and captain in the United States Air Force JAG Corps Reserves, hold nine degrees between them. Rodney was the Democratic nominee for U.S. Senate against John McCain in 2010. They are active members of Congregation Or Chadash, serve on numerous boards and have two daughters, Rose, 2, and Ruth, 5 months. So how do they find time to write children’s books?
In May the couple’s second book, Jeremy Jackrabbit Recycles the Can, will be distributed free to each of the 46,000 kindergartners in Maricopa County and to 6,000 kindergartners in Pima County. It follows the successful formula they created with Jeremy Jackrabbit Harvests the Rain, which was given to more than 14,000 kindergarteners in Pima County in 2010.
The books are designed to promote literacy, community action and sustainability. “If you teach kids, it spreads and parents get into it,” says Rodney, who wrote his dissertation on hands-on learning for his Ph.D. in arid land resource sciences. Sasha and Rodney write the rhymes, and then, with library- and school-supported contests, Sasha selects drawings from student illustrators. The couple recruits foundation and corporate sponsors to publish and distribute the books. The second book has added components – Spanish translation
on each page, a recycling guide at the end and a related curriculum. Arizona State University’s Global Institute of Sustainability has written seven lesson plans that are aligned with Common Core standards so teachers can teach hands-on lessons along with distributing the book.
“I am in awe of their commitment to the students of Arizona and how they have helped promote literacy and recycling,” says Dr. Tim Ham, superintendent of Madison Elementary School District, where about 800 kindergartners will receive the book. “If we had more individuals like the Glass- mans, we would have a much better world. It is through efforts like theirs that give us all hope and inspiration to give more of oneself.”
Deborah Anders, PhD, principal, Davidson Elementary School, where about 70 children received the first book in 2010, agrees. “Our free/reduced lunch percentage averages about 88, so many of our kids do not have access to new books. The kids are always excited to get books of their own! … The Glassmans have always been focused on the needs of the community. They have been particularly supportive of local public schools.”
The genesis of the couple’s writing career began with a chance encounter at the first Tucson Festival of Books in 2009. Rodney was talking to his friend, Arizona Daily Star publisher John Humenik, when a young attorney stopped to tell Humenik about a children’s book he’d written. “You’re going to write a children’s book,” Rodney says his publisher friend told him. Always up for a challenge (remember he ran for U.S. Senate against John McCain, former Republican presidential nominee), Rodney’s only question was “What should we write about?”
Since Sasha was finishing her MBA in sustainable energy and finance, and Rodney had recently drafted the nation’s first mandatory rainwater harvesting, gray-water plumbing and solar-powered water heating ordinances while a Tucson city councilman, they knew it had to be about sustainability.
Sasha says the hardest part is agreeing on rhymes for each of the concepts they want students to learn. They co-write each page, bouncing ideas off each other – often at bedtime. For the second book, Sasha chose illustrations from more than 1,000 drawings submitted by Phoenix area students in ki ndergarten through eighth grade. “Seeing the smiles on the faces of our student artists when they first hold their published art in their little hands is truly heartwarming,” explains Sasha. “It’s also fun to watch children read the books because you can see the wheels in their heads turning as they think, ‘I can do this too.’”
Ham says he is excited for students in his elementary schools to receive the books: “The students will see the importance of recycling and how it relates to being good stewards of our environment. Obviously, those who do not have a book at home will receive their first gift – a book – which is exciting.” The couple’s involvement seems to snowball with each new interaction.
Rodney has served on more than a dozen non-profit boards while in Tucson including the Jewish Community Center of Tucson, Jewish Feder- ation of Southern Arizona, Desert Caucus (Arizona’s second-oldest pro-Israel Public Affairs Committee), Catalina Council Boy Scouts of America and American Heart Association. In Tucson Rodney sang in the choir for 15 years and was a member of Anshei Israel, where the couple married. Now in Phoenix they are members of Or Chadash.
Consistent with his passion for music, this Yom Kippur Rodney sang his first solo, “Mah Nomar Lefanecha,” with their new congregation. So he’s especially excited that the second Jeremy Jackrabbit book is being turned into a musical that will be performed by the Great Arizona Puppet Theater. That connection spurred Sasha to join the theater’s board. Sasha is also a governing board member of the Madison Elementary School District, a position she says grew out of her participation on the Young Women’s Cabinet with the Jewish Federation of Southern Arizona.
“The cabinet adopted a charity project every year,” says Sasha. “For a couple years we helped at low-income schools. I started volunteering and now serve on the school board in our area. It developed from my experience in federation.” After the birth of their second daughter, Sasha and Rodney joined three other young couples to form Chavurah Sababa (Awesome Fellowship in Hebrew).
The second book was harder, Sasha and Rodney agree. While they collaborated on the rhymes, Sasha was in her second trimester with their second daughter while also running for school board. She admits to getting a bit cranky at times with some of Rodney’s silly suggestions. “I did not enjoy it,” she says. Additionally challenging was that in Tucson, they were working with people with whom they had long-standing relationships; in Phoenix they were newcomers. “With first-time supporters the bar was set higher to have a more polished product,” says Rodney.
Even without longstanding community connections, Rodney jumped in and raised more than $75,000 in pledges in just 90 days. United Food and Commercial Workers Local 99 was the first $10,000 sponsor. Other sponsors include Waste Management, Humana, Plumbers and Pipefitters Local 469, SRP, University of Phoenix, the City of Tempe and Caliber Group, a marketing and public relations firm that has been supporting the Glassmans’ community work for years. The Glassmans are looking forward to the book launch party in conjunction with Earth Day. All of the young illustrators have been invited personally by Mayor Greg Stanton and his wife to attend and autograph the page they illustrated after the mayor and his wife read the book.
And after that? “The third book in the series will be Jeremy Jackrabbit Captures the Sun, and we just received our first commitment of a $10,000 sponsorship from UFCW. We are off to the races,” says Rodney, adding they hope to raise enough to distribute that book free to children across the state.
