The starting place for any powerful story must be the author himself. If a story doesn’t resonate first and foremost with you, why believe it will ever be able to touch a reader?
Author: Susan Uhlig
The Quickest Kid in Clarksville
Perfect Picture Book Friday
The Quickest Kid in Clarksville (Chronicle Books, 2016) by Pat Zietlow Miller and illustrated by Frank Morrison is such a fun book.
Alta is pretending she’s the fastest woman in the world. Although she knows “Wilma Rudolph–who grew up right in this town–is faster than anyone.” Then a girl she’s “never seen before comes sashaying my way like she owns the sidewalk.” Worse yet this new girl has brand new shoes to strut in. Shoes like Wilma’s. And her daddy “went uptown to get ’em.” Alta doesn’t have a “shoe-buying daddy.” The girls commence to race and . . .
You’ll have to see what happens yourself. It’s a very satisfying ending.
I love the illustrations and I love the author’s note at the end that tells readers about sprinter Wilma Rudolph, who survived polio, yet in 1960 became the first U.S. woman to win three gold medals at the same Olympics.
Read about the author here. And read about the illustrator here.
If you really want to write, then shut yourself in a room, close the door, and WRITE. If you don’t want to write, do something else. It’s as simple as that.
If you really want to
You don’t get into writing. Writing gets into you.
You dont get into writing
It is the writer who might catch the imagination of young people, and plant a seed that will flower and come to fruition.