Author’s Day

I enjoy few things as much as going to a school and telling children stories for an author’s day. I suppose I’m different from most authors who do that. The ones I have seen often talk to the young people about what it’s like to write a book and get it published. Some talk about the publishing process. Others encourage the students to write their own stories. All of those do a great job, but that wouldn’t work for me. Instead, I like to dive in and tell stories. For me, the best way I can get them to think of one of their own is to tell them one.

I have had some wonderful experiences telling stories. One day, I arrived at a school, and the principal told me they planned to take me around to the different grades, spending one or two hours in each. They would pull all the classes for the grades into one large group.

I started with kindergarten and first grade. There was one cute little blond kindergartener who was lively and talkative. I told them stories about when I was their age and about my dog, and she was full of questions.

The next group was second and third grade. In the third grade, there was a blond girl who was the exact duplicate of the one from kindergarten, just older. And sure enough, she was lively and talkative, too. I was dressed in my cowboy clothes, representative of many stories from the days of my youth. As I finished, she begged me to put on my cowboy hat.

When I did, she squealed with delight. “I finally get to meet a real cowboy!”

We skipped a few grades to pick them up later, and I was ushered into a gym. It was set up with a microphone and speaker in front of the bleachers. The seventh, eighth, and ninth graders were brought in.

“What are we here for?” I heard one girl ask another.

“I’m not sure,” the second girl replied.

“I heard some teachers talking about how someone is here to encourage us to write,” a third girl said.

The first girl rolled her eyes. “That is so stupid. Writing is boring.”

I asked the person introducing me to keep it short, so they just said my name and that I was an author. Even that much, and I could see the young people tuning me out.

I started. “Have any of you ever had to run for your life from a pack of coyotes?”

Immediately, I had their attention. I then told them the story of searching one dark winter night to find a cow that had escaped from the corral. I knew she would be calving, and following her tracks in the snow, I finally found her with her newborn calf. But just as I decided I needed to get the wet calf to the shelter of the barn, I heard the first coyote howl. Picking up the calf, I started to run.

By the time I got to the point where the coyotes caught up to us and surrounded us, the students were on the edge of their seats as I told them that I set the calf down and turned to fight. When I finished that story, I turned to a story about a famous racehorse I took care of. As the lunch bell sounded, many of the students surrounded me, wanting to ask questions.

After lunch, my last group was the fourth, fifth, and sixth graders. I considered which stories would be best for them. I thought the ones about the dog might be too simple, but the coyote one might be a little scary. I decided to go with the coyotes but pulled back on it a little.

I could tell they were with me into the story. Sometimes, when they are intent on the story, they will gradually scoot forward an inch or so at a time until I am surrounded. I don’t think they even realize they are doing it. When I told them about the coyotes surrounding us, one sweet little fourth grader blurted out, “Did you live?”

Some teachers grinned, but I simply said, “Yes, but let me tell you how.”

As the students leave, they often share a story of their own with me that they will now write down. And that is awesome, because that’s when I know I’ve done my job.