Every story told is part of a circle. There’s the thing that happened, and what it inspired, but there’s so much more. In the case of FIRE FLIGHT: A Wildfire Escape, it all started with an owl. And a helicopter pilot. There was a fire that raged for months. There was a picture. There was a reporter. There was a pilot’s friend who told the reporter about the picture.
And because of the picture and the reporter and the pilot’s friend, the story of the owl and the pilot reached a writer –me!– on the other side of the country…a few days after the last flames were finally extinguished.
The pilot’s friend’s daughter is a teacher, and I got to read FIRE FLIGHT to her second grade class in Basin, Wyoming, this week. Thank you, Laura Irwin Elementary! And thank you to Ms. McClure, who said, “I love your book and the story it tells! It was so fun to talk about the story with my students and also use it as a way for them to learn about important events and how they affect both people and animals.”
Just like a story is part of a collective, so too is a book. I told the children all about the illustrator Chiara, and the art director Nate, and the editor Ali, and all the people at Capstone who work so hard to craft beautiful picture books that can be shared with the world. I told them about my agent, Mary – and how she helped launch this book and me so that my words could find these students and just maybe ignite their imaginations. And now, as readers, they too are part of the circle. I told them they were poets, and artists, and that maybe they would work on books and stories someday.
Cedar Pruitt 