By Christian Carapucci
TINTON FALLS – While children’s books and young adult novels are staples of the literary community, there is an entire age group in between with its own literature. Middle grade books – for ages 8 to 12 – often address a time when kids are first discovering who they are and who they are becoming. Librarian and debut novelist Mike Steele has added a feisty character to the genre and hopes readers can see themselves in her.
“Not Lucille,” a work of historical fiction, grew from settings and situations that he learned about growing up.
“I’ve always been a big reader since I was a kid,” Steele, the Lower School librarian at Ranney School in Tinton Falls, said. “I started writing around 2010. My first published work was a play. I was directing school plays in Hamilton and I was having trouble finding a play that worked for the group.” He read about two dozen plays before deciding to write his own.
A decade later, during the COVID-19 pandemic, Steele revisited his lifelong desire to write middle-grade literature, and Lucy (“Not Lucille”) was born.
The story takes place in 1931 in an Italian American neighborhood in Trenton and follows lively and curious 10-year-old Lucy Contento, who is excited to start school at Robbins Elementary. On her first day, however, her new teacher dampens that excitement by giving Lucy detention (she is very talkative and impulsive).
On her way home, Lucy takes a shortcut through the Trenton Academy for the Deaf campus and notices a young girl, Florence, sitting alone. The novel charts the development of their friendship and Lucy’s desire to get an American Sign Language dictionary.
The story includes several personal connections to Steele’s life. “I grew up right outside of Trenton and my grandparents grew up during the Depression in this Italian American neighborhood,” he said.
“When I was in college, I found out that there used to be a deaf school” nearby, he said.
“I thought to myself, ‘There’s a story there.’ ”
Steele’s grandmother, a “very talkative and outgoing woman,” became the inspiration for Lucy.
“Not Lucille,” which was published in 2025, recently received the Imadjinn Award for Best Middle Grade Book at the Imaginarium Convention.
“I wasn’t anticipating anything from this, but the audience reaction was amazing. It’s really nice to know that I have so much support from the school community,” Steele said.
The three-day Imaginarium Convention is held annually in Louisville, Kentucky, and includes awards, panel discussions, creative workshops and more.
More than awards, though, what Steele really hopes is that students with ADHD get to see themselves in Lucy, even though that wasn’t a diagnosis in the 1930s.
“I’ve worked with so many students over the years who are neurodivergent and I really just want to see them reflected in the media,” Steele said.
By focusing on those whose stories are all too often overlooked while keeping young readers interested and excited about reading, “Not Lucille” has captured imaginations. “When the book was published, there was a small group of girls (at Ranney) that loved to read historical fiction,” Steele said. Those students came to the library to tell him how much they love the book.
“It was very sweet. They wanted me to sign it for them.”
The article originally appeared in the September 3 – 9, 2026 print edition of The Two River Times.
