OMG! I'm an Author

I was left at home, alone, one year during Spring Break. My daughter, Carsi, suggested I should write a book.

“Sure, what would I write about?

“Patches!” The answer came so quickly, I knew she’d already thought about this. It was the theme she always asked for as we traveled the 150 miles to and from Grandma’s ranch. I told stories about growing up on the ranch. Patches was my horse, my mustang. We were best friends. The kids loved reliving my growing-up years as we traveled.

Write a book! So I did. I pulled out the old Big Chief tablet I had in my trunk and wrote about mustangs. The next year when I went back to teaching, I typed the story and stapled it together. My fourth graders (and then fifth graders) helped me edit, rewrite and perfect that book for the next eleven years.

I still didn’t consider myself an “author.” Until National Book Week one year when I was teaching 5th grade. To celebrate, I had drawn a big chalk line down the middle of the blackboard. On one side I wrote “FAVORITE BOOK”. On the other half I wrote “FAVORITE AUTHOR”. Students could put their choices on the board anytime during the day. Of course the old familiar classics appeared on board: Hatchet and A Wrinkle in Time and Number the Stars appeared during the day; Gary Paulson, and Madeleine L’Engle, Lois Lowry appeared under the author heading.

I walked around the room with a smile on my face all day as really great books and authors were listed. At the end of the day, as I reviewed the lists I noticed that my most reluctant reader had listed his favorite book as Patches and his favorite author was Claudia Little. OMG I am an author!