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Kansas has always been friendly to Katherine Ayres and her writing.
“My first novel, ‘Family Tree,’ which came out in 1996, was nominated for the William Allen White Children’s Book Award,” said Ayres, who lives in Pittsburgh, Pa., but visited Thursday in this Pittsburg.
She is currently giving readings across Kansas from another book, “Up, Down and Around,” which was selected as the Kansas Reads to Preschoolers book for 2010. The week is an early literacy project sponsored by the State Library of Kansas.
Theme of the event this year is healthy foods, and “Up, Down and Around” is a celebration of vegetables and how they grow.
“I also think the reason my book was selected is because the illustrator, Nadine Bernard Westcott, did such a wonderful job,” Ayres said.
This was confirmed by Tammie Benham, Pittsburg, early childhood director of the Kansas Parent Information Resource Center.
“I was on the selection committee this year, and we had a stack of books to go through,” Benham said. “We narrowed it and narrowed it down to five books, which we gave to the state librarian, with the heavy recommendation that ‘Up, Down and Around’ be our selection. One of the reasons was because it’s just such a beautiful book.”
Ayres said she started her Kansas reading tour in Dodge City, then went on to Great Bend, Wichita, Coffeyville and Pittsburg. Her final stops today will be at LaCygne and Kansas City, Kan.
Ayres began her career with children as an educator, and served as an elementary principal for five years.
“It was not a good match for me,” the author said. “I enjoyed hands-on work with children, not sitting in an office.”
She had loved books since her earliest childhood, and began inventing stories before she could write them, so decided that writing for children might suit her.
“But I had my share of banging my head against the wall and coming away bloody,” Ayres said. “At one point my father asked me, ‘Kathy, what aren’t you doing?’ I said, ‘If I knew that, I’d be doing it.’ He suggested that it might be time for me to quit trying to write, but I said, ‘No, I believe I’m getting better’.”
Now she has numerous books and many short stories to her credit, all of them for youngsters from toddlers to teens.
She has also returned to education, and teaches writing at Chatham University, where she coordinates the masters of arts program in children’s writing. Her goal is to help students avoid the head banging that she went through during her development as a writer.
Kansas has always been friendly to Katherine Ayres and her writing.
“My first novel, ‘Family Tree,’ which came out in 1996, was nominated for the William Allen White Children’s Book Award,” said Ayres, who lives in Pittsburgh, Pa., but visited Thursday in this Pittsburg.
She is currently giving readings across Kansas from another book, “Up, Down and Around,” which was selected as the Kansas Reads to Preschoolers book for 2010. The week is an early literacy project sponsored by the State Library of Kansas.
Theme of the event this year is healthy foods, and “Up, Down and Around” is a celebration of vegetables and how they grow.
“I also think the reason my book was selected is because the illustrator, Nadine Bernard Westcott, did such a wonderful job,” Ayres said.
This was confirmed by Tammie Benham, Pittsburg, early childhood director of the Kansas Parent Information Resource Center.
“I was on the selection committee this year, and we had a stack of books to go through,” Benham said. “We narrowed it and narrowed it down to five books, which we gave to the state librarian, with the heavy recommendation that ‘Up, Down and Around’ be our selection. One of the reasons was because it’s just such a beautiful book.”
Ayres said she started her Kansas reading tour in Dodge City, then went on to Great Bend, Wichita, Coffeyville and Pittsburg. Her final stops today will be at LaCygne and Kansas City, Kan.
Ayres began her career with children as an educator, and served as an elementary principal for five years.
“It was not a good match for me,” the author said. “I enjoyed hands-on work with children, not sitting in an office.”
She had loved books since her earliest childhood, and began inventing stories before she could write them, so decided that writing for children might suit her.
“But I had my share of banging my head against the wall and coming away bloody,” Ayres said. “At one point my father asked me, ‘Kathy, what aren’t you doing?’ I said, ‘If I knew that, I’d be doing it.’ He suggested that it might be time for me to quit trying to write, but I said, ‘No, I believe I’m getting better’.”
Now she has numerous books and many short stories to her credit, all of them for youngsters from toddlers to teens.
She has also returned to education, and teaches writing at Chatham University, where she coordinates the masters of arts program in children’s writing. Her goal is to help students avoid the head banging that she went through during her development as a writer.
“I believe you should share what you know,” Ayres said.
She’s delighted that “Up, Down and Around” may spur children to eat their veggies and be more healthy, but said that her aim is not to educate children with her books.
“I don’t like didactic books and I don’t like preachy books,” Ayres said.
“Children get enough of that in school. I want books to be fun. With young children, I want the book to sing. With older children, I want to make engaging characters that entice them into the story. If children fall in love with books, they’ll love books for their whole lives. What could be more powerful than to be a lifelong learner?”
