The rhyme weaver behind NextGen Learners. Brain science with a wink, big feelings with a hand to hold, and 570 picture books waiting to find the children who need them.
Maisel McLaula is the author every child wishes lived inside their bookshelf. She writes the kind of stories that your nervous system knows are true before your brain catches up. She rhymes neuroscience. She names feelings nobody else has bothered to name yet. She turns the periodic table into a friend group, the letters of the alphabet into adventurers, and a quiet, ordinary brain stem into a hero called Brainstem Benny.
She is, in a word, magic. The good kind. The kind that does its homework first and then dares to sparkle.
Maisel grew up looking for stories that took children seriously. Books that did not flatten big feelings into small ones, or whisper around brain science instead of teaching it. She kept waiting for someone to write the library she needed. Eventually she realized that the someone, in her case, was going to have to be her.
She set out to build it the long way around. Story by story. Character by character. 570 books across 10 collections, each one designed to meet a specific child at a specific moment. The shy one. The angry one. The 4 year old who already worries. The 9 year old who reads everything. The neurodivergent kid who has been told their brain is a problem and is about to find out it is, in fact, a wonder.
None of this would exist without Maisel’s husband, Mickey. He is the one who watched her quietly burn out at jobs that did not deserve her, and decided enough was enough. He told her to put down the career that was paying the bills and pick up the work that was actually her calling.
He made it possible. Practically, financially, emotionally. He cleared the runway. He still does. Every book on this site was written, in some real way, by both of them. He just has the good sense not to take a byline.
For every dreamer with a Mickey of their own. Find them. Keep them. Thank them often.
Every Maisel book leans into rhythm because rhythm is how brains remember. The rhymes are not decoration. They are the carrier wave.
She names brain regions, neurotransmitters, and emotional families out loud. Children who learn the words can later use the tools.
Honest about hard feelings. Gentle with hard moments. Never patronizing. Children are smart, and Maisel writes that way.
All ten collections share a single universe of characters who know each other. Read one and the next one feels like coming home.
Every book has a matching lesson plan, discussion deck, and free resource packet. Educators are part of how she writes.
Maisel is not chasing a bestseller. She is building a library that outlasts her. The pace tells you everything.
Ten collections. One imagination.
42 books mapping the brain into a friend group of helpers. Now publishing.
181 emotion creatures across 14 feeling families. The biggest emotional vocabulary library in print.
53 books building personal power, decision making, and daily life mastery.
30 shapes from circle to dodecahedron. Spatial reasoning made irresistible.
10 element family adventures. The periodic table as a playground.
Maisel reads every letter and every email she receives, and she does respond when she can. The notes you send mean more than you may know.
She also loves her quiet life. So please understand:
If you would like a book signed, here is how:
Mail the book to Maisel at the NGL address below, along with:
She will sign it, write a small note inside, and put it back in the mail to you.
For quick notes, gentle questions, or just to say hello.
A real letter. With a stamp. Children especially welcome.
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