A girl discovers her parents and siblings have all turned into vampires with a delightfully different diet.
A group of friends deal with a crazy gnome on the way to meet a mermaid princess.
A bulldozer wants to invite his friends to a party, but theyre all busy working.
Those were the plots of just three of the many books on display at the 19th annual and final Young Authors Celebration Friday and Saturday. Only one, Bulldozers Big Day, was written and illustrated by the husband-wife team of Candace Fleming and Eric Rohmann, visiting author and author/illustrator, respectively. The other two are the work of local students: Chocolate Vampires by Alayna Cook of Marmaton Valley Elementary School and The Mermaid Princess by Jaide Marvin of Humboldt Elementary School.
The guest authors discussed their work with students from across Allen County during school visits Friday. That evening, they met with adults and students for a dinner and book signing. On Saturday, students shared the books they wrote and illustrated with the visiting authors, who also autographed the students books.
TWENTY YEARS is a long time to devote to a volunteer program. In fact, its enough time to raise a child, Deb Greenwall, chairman of the Youth Authors committee, said during the Friday evening gala and dinner. When the committee first met in 2018, committee member Bonnie Welch was pregnant; that child is now in college.
We had no idea where this would take us, Greenwall said, giving credit to the committee members, teachers, parents and students who made the program possible.
An annual grant from the Sleeper Family Trust funded the program. Greenwall read a letter from a family representative about how much the Young Authors program meant to them.
This is the final year for the program because of a combination of reduced funding and too many other demands on teachers time, Green-wall said.
FLEMING, the visiting author, wrote her first novel in fifth grade, a 10-page, 10-chapter mystery.
She gave that precious book as a gift to her teacher, someone she adored and who always encouraged her writing. Which only goes to show how important educators are in young peoples lives, she said.
The teacher returned the book to Fleming, with a surprise. She had entered it into a writing contest where it won first prize. Through all these years Fleming has kept that ribbon and, in fact, brought it with her last week to show to students. Fleming said she looks at the ribbon every day to remind her of the reason she writes: Its so joyous an occupation and Im so excited to share it.
Greenwall, who accompanied Fleming to the schools, said students were spellbound by the presentations.
Fleming said she and Rohmann enjoy meeting with students for many reasons, joking, Were always looking for new ideas but mostly because we want to share that love of writing and illustrating and storytelling.
ROHMANN knows how to reach students, Daryl Sigg, vice chairman of the Young Authors committee, said. Sigg accompanied Rohmann to local schools and saw his ability to single out students who seemed to thrive under the special attention.
