John Erickson - Meet the Author

About a month and a half ago, I checked out some books at the library for Caleb. He reads chapter books (like Hardy Boys) in about 2 hours - cover to cover - and can tell you about what he read. One of the books I found was a series by John Erickson called Hank the Cowdog. I thought he would like them because he loves farms and animals and these books take place on a farm. He LOVED them. Well, ironically enough, Saturday afternoon John Erickson was at our library. They were selling his books and he was signing them. We bought 3 of his books and he signed all three (one for each of the boys). After he signed books, he read from his newest book (he has 48 books).

I read a little bit of the first one because I wanted to make sure it was okay for Caleb to read. They sounded really interesting, but after hearing him read - I don't want to read it anymore - I want to hear him read it! He has so many different voices he uses for different characters and the story takes on a different feeling when you hear him. So, I was very excited to learn that the library had his audiobooks. I was even more excited to learn that it is HIS voice on all of his audiobooks. I checked several out for Caleb and they are great for in the car!

After he read a couple of chapters he answered questions. It was pretty awesome because just about every answer he gave, he mentioned his faith and God in. It is very reassuring to me as a mother (especially since I have not read all of the books before Caleb reads them) to know that the author is someone who has such a strong believe in faith.

This man also is a songwriter and singer. On all of the audiobooks, he sings a couple of songs and all of the instrumentals are from his family. He said when he started writing this series it was actually for adults (fellow farmers that had the same type of stories). All of his stories are written from either things that have happened to him or stories he has heard from fellow farmers. He soon learned from a school principal who called and asked him to speak to the schools kids, that the adults were not the only ones reading them.

Caleb and Isaac were both very interested in what he was saying (Bryce fell asleep as soon as he started reading). They were really excited to get his autograph and their own copy of one of his books. Caleb said this is a series he wants to read all of, so lets see...48 books at 2 hours a book - so he could have them read in 4 days (if he did not eat, sleep or play). Thank goodness he has been busy with BGC this summer - because at $5 a book it gets kind of expensive and the library does not have them all. This is another one of those series that is worth buying because I think all of the kids will really enjoy it! As much as I would like to buy the audio - I don't have the $600+ to do that!