Children's author sparks imagination

A polar bear, dragon and a rabbit. A lion, a tiger, a cheetah and a turtle. An orca, a giant and a gerbil.

These groups of animals, some more alike than others, were amongst the animals which combined into creatures beneath Erik Brooks' pen at the request of his young audiences at several Columbia Basin libraries Tuesday.

Brooks, author and illustrator of such books as "The Practically Perfect Pajamas," "Slow Days, Fast Friends," "Octavius Bloom and the House of Doom," amongst others, has been going around to area libraries for speaking engagements.

Brooks' tour included stops at Mattawa, Royal City, Quincy, Ephrata, Moses Lake, Warden, Soap Lake, Coulee City and Grand Coulee.

"The library was nice enough to invite me to come and visit all the libraries in the (North Central Regional Library) system," Brooks said. "I think I'm going to see 27 of the 28 libraries this summer."

During his presentations beginning Tuesday, Brooks said drawing the animal creature blends occurred to him as soamething fun to do.

"I did it this morning and thought, 'Oh, that's a good idea — I should do that for all of them,'" he said. "But there are five libraries that have kind of missed out."

As the summer goes on, Brooks plannved to pick a few of the animal blends he really likes and recreate smaller versions for his Web site for readers to download as a coloring saheet. The Web site is www.erikbraooks.com.

He is playing around with the idea for a book of animal combination creatures, he said.a

Brooks gave the original artwork to the libraries to use as incentives for their summer reading programs, possibly to give away to the reader of the most books.

A Winthrop resident, Brooks said it was his first time visiting the Columbia Basin, save for a brief stop in Moses Lake on the way to Spokane or Seattle.

"The geography of it is kind of amazing," he said. "Like all these ridges which go sort of perpendicular to the mountains are unique to me. The lay of the land feels like the Midwest, because it's agricultural. It's hotter and dryer."

For his presentation, Brooks wanted his audience to get a sense of what goes into his books.

"From the initial ideas, where some of the inspirations come from, to seeing little facets of the process," he said. "And to realize it's something they actually do a lot of themselves already, just taken to a slightly different level. But it's familiar to the way they already draw and think about things, I think."

Twelve-year-old Tiernan Hall was in the audience because he's interested in books and he likes to read new things.

"I thought it was actually pretty good," Hall said. "He was very specific about things, and he told stories about how he got the ideas and stuff."

"I have two boys who love to illustrate and write stories," Moses Lake resident Linda Ochoa said. "I thought maybe they could learn something. I thought it was excellent. He seemed to keep the interest of the kids, and he gave some practical advice my kids could follow. My boys loved his drawings and illustrations."

"I'd read one of his books before," said 10-year-old Alysha Overland. "I thought it was good. I liked his expression when he was reading the books."

"We'd heard about it through the summer reading program, and it's just great for them to be able to meet an author," said Jessica Carpenter, in attendance with her children. "It was wonderful, he was great and it was so fun he actually drew with the kids too. It made a huge difference."

Seven-year-old Morgan Tolley asked her mother Yvonne to come and hear Brooks.

"I thought seeing an author would be cool because I like to read books," Morgan said.

She liked watching Brooks draw the pictures, she said.

"I just like my kids to read; I think it's good for them," Yvonne Tolley said. "I just think reading is very important. If you can spark their interest to get them to read more, this is a good way to do it."

Moses Lake Library offers children's programs for the summer

MOSES LAKE — The Moses Lake Library announced its summer children's programs.

Monday at 10:30 a.m.: Area firefighter Tristan Hall and friends share safety tips for the holiday. Kids get experience with equipment the fire department uses and the full outfit they must wear.

July 11 at 3:30 p.m. and 6:30 p.m.: The North Central Regional Library Puppet Players perform two programs. They also perform July 26 at 10:30 a.m. and 6:30 p.m.

July 21 at 2 p.m.: Eric Slyter of the Knights of Veritas shares medieval history with his suit of armor and demonstrations of swordplay.

July 30 at 6:30 p.m.: Magician, ventriloquist and storyteller Steve Taylor performs.

Aug. 7 at 10:30 a.m.: Local staff offer a program entitled All the Glitters.

Programs which continue for the summer are the 10:30 a.m. baby story time Wednesdays and the bilingual family story time Thursdays at 6:30 p.m.