Published: October 20, 2009 10:23 pm      

Authors

Children’s authors visit local school

Six West Virginia children’s authors spent the day at Daniels Elementary School Tuesday in honor of West Virginia Authors day.

For the past five years, Daniels has used grant money to bring authors into the school, in an effort to inspire students to read, write and dream.

“We really believe authors change lives,” school counselor Ruth Baker said.

“Meeting authors and seeing how hard they work, all the revisions they do, and seeing them as people is really important. We do it as a way to really get kids excited about reading and writing.”

In the past, Daniels brought three authors in, but felt it wasn’t enough.

“This year we had six authors, which is something we haven’t done before. We wanted to have one author for every grade level,” Baker added.

The authors — Tracy Kincaid, Sarah Sullivan, Anna Smucker, Marc Harshman, Cheryl Ware and Belinda Anderson — spent the day working with an assigned grade level on the writing process.

Authors read one of their published books and discussed their personal process for becoming a writer. They also did an activity with each class, inspiring the students to read and write.

“I wouldn’t be here as a writer if I hadn’t been read aloud to as a young child,” Bridgeport author Smucker said.

“I remember when I met my first author when I was 30,” Ware, of Elkins, added.

“As a child, moving around constantly, books and libraries were what saved me as the new kid in town, over, over and over again,” Charleston author Sullivan said.

One of the books Sullivan read to her assigned group was her second book, “Dear Baby: Letters From Your Big Brother.”

“It’s letters from a big brother to his new baby sister,” she explained.

“It starts three weeks before she’s born and goes up until her first birthday. It’s about the ups and downs of being a new baby.”

In her classes, Sullivan’s first-grade students practiced writing letters to a family member.

“We’re talking about where writers get ideas, and I’m going to practice how to get ideas with them,” she said.

Kincaid, of Charleston, says she follows old advice when coming up with ideas for a new book.

“It’s real world experience. Write something that’s really happened that you know about,” she said.

“Everyone always told me to write about what you know.”

Kincaid’s book “Casey’s Lost Suitcase” follows this tip.

“My aunt went to Italy, and her suitcase never made it there. It was gone for 10 months and it came back and had all the tags of all the places it had gone to,” she said.

“From a suitcase’s perspective, I thought, ‘Wow! Poor little thing.’ And I created the character (suitcase) Casey.”

Wheeling author Harshman said he’s been in love with reading as far back as he can remember.

“I told the children all morning,” he said. “A good example: My parents and grandparents who really valued learning, even though we were way out in the country on a farm — a trip to town for groceries was always a trip to the library, so it started way back.

“As luck would have it, I would marry a children’s librarian, so my fate was sort of sealed.”

“I think everybody in here would agree that’s why we’re writers. My mom took me to the library every Friday night,” said Ware.

The event was sponsored by Daniels Elementary and its faculty senate, the Raleigh County Solid Waste Authority and West Virginia Humanities Council.

— E-mail: jayres@register-herald.com