Forget fairy tales. These books are about real life, and they're getting kids to read.

Growing up in Connecticut, Glen Mourning would write stories that reflected his mood and helped him imagine what he wanted to be in the future. 

He would find a sheet of paper and notepad and write about the type of life he wanted — like being a football player with a fancy car — and draw illustrations that matched the story. 

For him, these moments of writing stories and characters were therapeutic. 

"It was really a way for me to just get any of the frustration or any of the ideas that I had in my head just out, because I didn't have a lot of people that cared to listen to me when I was a little kid," Mourning said. "I had a house full of adults that just did their own thing and I was in trouble in school so much that I didn't really have a chance for teachers to even take a look at the writing that I was doing." 

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He decided to continue this path in writing as he played college football at University of Connecticut and majored in English. After college, he became an elementary school teacher and when he realized his stories could make an impact for children, he decided to get into the publishing business to create his own children's books. 

Now Mourning is the author of the Crunchy Life series where he tells stories, in his view, of the "real side of the world" and what kids are going through. 

On Feb. 28, Mourning visited Montclair Elementary School, where students from second through fifth grades were able to read the first book of the series. Montclair purchased over 200 books for the students and he was able to sign every one of them, as well as hand out shirts. 

The day was special for Shona Person, principal of Montclair Elementary School, who had the importance of reading instilled in her when she was young. Years later when she became a principal, she wanted to bring authors in to interact with students for the impact it would have on them and their reading habits. 

Currently in Escambia County, kindergarten readiness scores have decreased from 48% to 42% and the reading proficiency of third graders have dropped to 53%, which is 3% less than it was in 2019. Officials say they suspect a lot of the impact could have been due to COVID-19 and remote learning. 

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To halt the decrease in these numbers, Person wanted to find an author who wrote stories that her students could relate to their own experiences. She had followed Mourning's career on Twitter and was so impressed she reached out to him.

Mourning also has a curriculum to help teachers learn how to increase students' knowledge of the language art standards through his books. Most books can be difficult to connect with the curriculum if the students don't connect with them. 

Most importantly, Person wanted to make sure her students found that one book that would spark their journey into reading, which she believed Mourning's series would provide. 

"We have kids reading now for the first time on their own because of this book that we hadn't read all year. But when they were introduced to this book, they said, 'Oh, can I get the next one?'" Person told the News Journal. "And they've already started to move through his series because of that one book and they hadn't done it before. So it's insane but it all starts with that one book, finding that connection to that child, and from there the sky's the limit."

Charles Anthony Thomas, who goes by "Crunchy," is the protagonist of the series. He goes through many heartbreaking circumstances from losing his grandfather to gun violence, his father becoming incarcerated and losing a teacher who is a mentor for him when she leaves to work in another state. His life experiences make Crunchy ask deep questions on why people don’t care about children of color in urban communities and why schools don't teach a lot about Black history. 

Describing how he landed on the character's name, Mourning wrote that Crunchy continued to persevere even when he couldn't accept or swallow the reality of his situations.

"And just like that, I realized that sometimes life gets crunchy but that you can’t stop chewing and carrying on the best way that you can," he wrote.

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Mourning understands the topics his books cover — from police brutality to Colin Kaepernick taking a knee — are tough for teachers to discuss in their classrooms. To him, these issues are not just political issues, but people who live in these areas see them as a community issues that need to be addressed. 

"If you are a teacher facilitating a read aloud for these books, it's your responsibility as an American citizen to make sure that kids have an opportunity to talk about these real serious issues that people just sweep under a rug every year," Mourning said.