All you have to do is tell a story

BY ROSE POST
SALISBURY POST

Tell them a story and they’ll listen.

Nearly 700 fourth-graders in the auditorium at Granite Quarry Elementary School, who have already read Gloria Houston’s books and know all those children — Bigjim and Littlejim and Great-Aunt Arizona — like they know their own families, will listen.

They know Ruthie, who just comes right out of the pages of “The Year of the Perfect Christmas Tree,” and Valor, who hates to be told to act like a young lady and would rather wear britches like her cousin Jed and ride like the wind on her horse in the mountains.

They’ve read Gloria Houston’s books, and, oh, my! they’ll listen to her. And ask a million questions, because that will make her tell more stories.

And that’s what she’s doing for two days this week in Rowan County, which has been bringing real live writers to talk to real live readers in the Visiting Author Program for more than 20 years.

This year’s event, co-sponsored by Rowan Public Library and the Rowan-Salisbury Schools and featuring the author-in-residence and writing teacher at Western Carolina University, opened Wednesday night at the library, continued Thursday with programs at Granite Quarry Elementary School and dinner with the Literary Guild at Overton Elementary, and finishes today at Corriher-Lipe Elementary.

And by the time Houston heads back to the mountains today, she will have talked to more than 2,600 children — all the fourth-graders and many sixth-graders — in all 17 elementary schools.

Houston has known she was a storyteller since she was 7 years old. She wrote her first book in the third grade and can’t finish one tale before she’s into another.

And she knows there’s no better way to keep children on the edge of their seats for an hour and a half than to make them part of the program.

So ask questions, she says to an auditorium half full, while the rest of the children are coming in. Who says everybody’s got to be in a seat before you begin?

“Shout,” she says, “to make sure I hear you.” And they all want to ask questions.

“How many books have you written?”

About 50, she says, “but nine are published, and a 10th one dedicated to all librarians is about to be published.”

“Which would you rather write — a picture book or a regularbook?”

“A picture book is much harder,” she says, because picture books have so few pages, and every page has to count.

“Which of your books do you like best?”

All of them, of course.

She puts transparencies on the overhead projector and talks about the differences in narratives and novels. Narratives are like biographies. You’re born and one thing happens after another after another and you die.

Novels have problems. If Papa doesn’t get home for Christmas, the tree won’t get cut and Ruthie won’t get to be the angel or get a doll with a beautiful dress the color of cream.

And she has two favorites.

Her favorite novel is “Mountain Valor,” about a mountain girl who went after a band of outlaws who stole the family cows, and her favorite picture book is “My Great-Aunt Arizona,” who was really her great-aunt Arizona, who grew up to be a fourth-grade teacher and for 57 years hugged her students when their work was good and when it wasn’t.

And now Houston hugs her students. She hugs Ezkiel Curry, who can answer all her questions because he knows everything about “Bright Freedom’s Song,” her story of the Underground Railroad.

And back and forth it goes.

She asks and they ask, and the stories pour out in questions and answers:

“Who’s your favorite writer?”

Louisa May Alcott, of course. That’s where she found out girls could grow up and be writers.

“How long have you been writing books?”

A long time. Well, really since 1976. The first one was rejected 54 times before it got published.

But she kept writing and finally got published and won awards and did research to make sure everything was right and turned real stories into books. She also taught other people — like fourth-graders — that writers have to learn to research what they’re going to write so they tell the truth, and organize what they write to keep it flowing, and analyze what they’ve written to make sure they’ve done the best they can.

She likes getting books translated into other languages, like Japanese, and have a book you wrote that you can’t read a word of.

She likes knowing her books are all based on stories of real people collected by her father in the Appalachian mountains where she grew up.

And she likes writing after it’s done.

“The roughest part is putting your fanny on the chair and keeping it there. I love it when I’ve done it and hate it while I’m doing it.”

Like playing sports.

Practicing for the game is all drudgery.

But the game is great.

And so is telling a story.