By Kathy Chaffin
kchaffin@salisburypost.com
This year’s Rowan-Salisbury Schools’ visiting children’s author wrote his first book in the first grade.
Dr. Steven L. Layne shared the story behind that yet unpublished book with third- and fourth- graders from all 20 of the school system’s elementary schools this week, beginning at Woodleaf on Tuesday and ending at Knollwood on Friday. It all began, he told them, one day during recess.
His teacher, Mary Lou Porter, was wonderful, Layne said, “except for one thing ó recess.” Whereas the other three first-grade classes went to recess together, Mrs. Porter took her class out with the fourth-grade class of her good friend, Reba Peacock.
“When you’re in the first grade,” he said, “fourth- graders look like giant tree people.”
Layne said the biggest fourth-grader of all was Amy Oswald. “She was as big as a mountain,” he said, “and mean as a snake.”
Now it so happened that Amy Oswald had an unusual hobby: knocking first-grade boys down on the playground and kissing them.
One day during recess, Layne and his best friend, Max, decided to be adventurous and go down the fourth-grade slide. Max, at Layne’s insistence, went first. His “Yeahhhh” turned into a scream about halfway down.
When Layne looked to see what was wrong, he saw Amy Oswald waiting for Max at the bottom of the slide. “You know what you do when Amy Oswald gets your best friend?” he asked. “You run.”
It didn’t work. “She got me, too,” he said. “She got us both … We were so mad.”
When they went back inside, Mrs. Porter assigned the first-graders to wish for something they really wanted to happen, but not to talk about it. When Layne asked the students at Knollwood to guess what his wish was about, they responded in unison, “Amy Oswald.”
“You guessed her, Chester,” he said.
Layne said he had wished for a giant purple monster to come down from outer space and eat Amy Oswald.
The next day, Layne said Mrs. Porter said to the class, “Your wish is coming true.” He said he looked around, but didn’t see any monster.
That’s when Mrs. Porter assigned them to write a story about the wish coming true. Layne titled his “The Thing That Ate Amy.”
Like any good teacher, he said Mrs. Porter walked around the room looking at what students were writing. By the time she got to him, he was well into his plot line.
“Amy’s head is off of her body,” he said. “The monster is stomping on her and chomping her ….”
Layne told Mrs. Porter up front that she was going to love his story. After reading his paper, he said she asked him, “Steven, did you write this?”
He said yes.
Instead of scolding him for what he had written like he expected, Layne said Mrs. Porter replied, ” ‘Well, you’re an author.’ ”
People don’t have to see their books in a bookstore to be an author, he told the students. “You’re an author when you write.”
Layne looked around the more than 300 students sitting on the floor of the Knollwood gym Friday and began naming famous writers, saying the next one might be among them.
“They’re going to come out of some school,” he said. “Why not yours? Why not you?”
At all seven of his appearances in Rowan-Salisbury elementary schools, Layne encouraged students to keep reading and writing.
“You’re an author when you write,” he told Woodleaf, Cleveland and Mount Ulla third- and fourth-graders gathered in the Woodleaf auditorium Tuesday. “If you don’t remember anything else I say to you today,” Layne said, “remember that.”
He had Knollwood and Koontz third- and fourth-graders promise Friday they would take a few extra seconds when they looked in the mirror again while brushing their teeth, combing their hair or simply admiring their good looks to say, “I am an author.”
Though he’s 43, the little boy in Layne seems to come out when he speaks to students. He engages them quickly and holds their attention throughout with his storytelling voices and animated interactions.
As part of a PowerPoint presentation, Layne showed students the notes he had made for his very first book, “Thomas’s Sheep and the Great Geography Test.” An elementary school teacher at the time, he said got the idea one night when he couldn’t go to sleep and started counting sheep.
Layne, who lives in Elgin, Ill., stayed up all night working on the story and finished it two weeks later. He sent copies to more than 20 publishers, he said, picking one for each letter of the alphabet. They all responded, “no, no, no, no …”
“I decided to quit,” he said, “and I did. I quit for one day.”
It was an article about Dr. Seuss’ first book being rejected 51 times that inspired him to keep trying. Layne started back down the alphabet until he got a “yes” from Pelican Publishing Company.
He’s written 17 books, including titles for children, teens and adults and has three more under contract. Three of his children’s books are about teachers, and one is about principals. Layne also wrote an inspirational book for teachers titled, “Life’s Literacy Lessons: Poems for Teachers.”
Two of his children’s books ó “The Teachers’ Night Before Christmas” and “My Brother Dan’s Delicious” ó received the IRA/CBC Children’s Choice Award, the first in 2002 and the second in 2004.
His novel for teens, “This Side of Paradise,” won the Hal Clement Award for Best New Science Fiction Novel for Teens and the IRA Young Adult Choice Title in 2003. His picture book, “T is for Teachers: A School Alphabet,” received the 2006 Teachers’ Choice Award by Learning Magazine.
One of his children’s books, “Over Land and Sea: A Story of International Adoption,” is near and dear to his heart. Layne and his wife, Debbie, an elementary school principal, adopted four infants from orphanages in the Russian Federation in 2002, 2004, 2006 and 2008.
One of their two daughters, Victoria, is among the international children featured on the cover of the book. That may have been a mistake, Layne told the third- and fourth-graders. Victoria is a bit of a drama queen, he said, and has been known to brag about her claim to fame.
On a recent trip to the grocery store, Layne said she wandered away from him and he found her talking to a woman, saying, “Well, you know my name is Victoria Layne, and I’m on the cover of a book. Did you know I’m on the cover of a book? I bet you’re not on a cover of a book, are you?”
Layne, after working for 15 years as an elementary and middle school teacher, went to work at Judson College in Elgin, Ill., as an associate professor of education and literature. He also serves as a literacy consultant and spends a great deal of his time speaking to students and presenting at teacher conferences.
While in Rowan County, he spoke to teachers at the Horizons Unlimited Supplementary Educational Center Thursday on “Using Children’s Books to Excite Young Writers.”
For more information on Dr. Steven Layne and his books, log onto his Web site at stevelayne.com.