Children's author shares her craft

RUMFORD -- Youngsters from all three Rumford Elementary School first grades sat in front of a smart board Thursday morning as an award-winning children's author from Brunswick shared in the fun of one of books.

Cynthia Lord, who visited with all the K-5 youngsters at the school as well as an evening presentation to the public in conjunction with a book fair, asked students where they got their ideas for stories. She then said an idea to write a story was the theory of W.O.W, which start with something one wants, the obstacles to that, then what does he or she do and finally, does he or she win?

She said those are the four things "that help make us a writer."

Lord then talked about one of her books, which is based around the fact that when her daughter was young, she loved birthday parties. She then read the book, Happy Birthday Hamster, shown over the smart board.

Children had fun mimicking some of the actions by the characters in the book.

When the book was finished, Lord read some of the prepared questions by student. Several, like Jamaal, wanted to know when the monster truck book will be coming out. The author said it should be sometime in 2014.

Lord said her life as a writer began at age four with a song collaboration with my sister (I couldn’t write, so she did the actual writing).

The song was called “Ding Dong the Cherries Sing."

It went like this:

“Ding-dong, the cherries sing,

Tra-la-la-la-la, la-la-la-la

Ding-dong, the cherries sing,

Tra-la-la-la-la Ding, Ding!”

The children were certainly ready for Lord's arrival. There were welcome signs at the front door and in the entryway.

On the wall was a big hot rod racetrack. On each car, the student wrote the name of their favorite book. In the middle of the walkway to the library was a double yellow-line with messages about reading.

Lord said that from her experience here, she'd like students to learn that "writers are regular people and when you're going through the process of writing a story, have a fun time."