Local author makes reading personal

SANDPOINT — New careers can leave the launch pad in the most unexpected ways. For one Sandpoint author, that literary liftoff took place in a classroom, where her passion for teaching kids to read sparked a journey into the writer’s life.

Twenty years later, Carla Kirby still writes and distributes children’s books. When compared with most stories aimed at early readers, however, her titles jump right off the shelf. They share similar kinds of adventures and supporting characters, but in Kirby’s books, the most memorable character of all — the one who saves the day or gets the job done — is the reader.

That makes her personalized children’s books a real page-turner, because, if you’re one of the lucky kids who own one, you get to star in each story.

The author wrote her first personalized kid’s book when she was a reading specialist in San Diego. Miss Pennington at the time, she would sit down each day with youngsters who not only did not share her love for reading, they had no interest in it at all.

“These were kids who didn’t want to learn,” Kirby said. “So I had to make it very creative.”

Out of that artistic search came an oversized text that rocked the classroom and, eventually, charted a new professional direction. It started on the morning the teacher arrived with “Miss Pennington’s Big Book.”  Within its pages was the name of every child in class. They didn’t know that when she began to read the story aloud, but heads began to pop up, one by one, as the students heard their names.

Within a few pages, the youngsters were on the edge of their seats, waiting to hear a bit of personal dialog, eager to learn what role they played in the story.

“Then the kids were interested — very interested,” the author explained. “Because they realized ‘it’s all about me.’”

Recalcitrant non-readers suddenly dove into this new world of words, discovering a love for books that their teacher had savored since childhood.

“As a kid, some of the other neighbors had Kool-Aid stands,” remembered Kirby, who spent her early years in Coeur d’Alene and has family roots in Sandpoint. “I had a library. I’d set up a little table with my books and check them out to the neighbor kids. They always brought them back, every one.”

Her personalized book business now includes about 20 titles spanning a variety of interests, from “Circus Star” to “The Lost Dinosaur” and “Time Travelers.”   Locally, a popular choice has been a story called “Imagine That,” where a toy train takes a child on an adventure that leads through the Wild West, into space and back again on a fast-paced exploration fired by imagination.

“It’s actually a best-seller in Sandpoint because of all the trains,” the author said. Her other top sellers include Christmas books and early reader Christian books such as “God’s Promise” about Noah’s ark and the story “God Loves Me.”

Kirby has distributed the personalized books long enough now that she runs into big kids who, just as they did when they were little, find joy in reading the same story over and over.

“Since I’ve been doing this for 20 years, I have adults come up to me and say, ‘The Ballerina Princess is my favorite book — my grandpa gave it to me,’” the writer said.

“When I first started, the target was young moms,” said Kirby, whose children’s books average about $12.95 each. “Now it’s the grandparents. They have the time and the money to do it and they love buying books for their grandkids. Plus, they know their names will go in it, too, and that it will become a keepsake.”

All of which explains why personalization is so powerful. With just a few keystrokes, Kirby enters the information from an order form, prints the inside pages, binds them in a hard cover and puts the illustrated story in the mail within minutes. The tale is built around the recipient and the cover page bears the name of the gift givers, their personal greeting, the child’s age and — if a digital photo is provided with the order — even the child’s picture.

Kirby admits that she often donates almost as many books as she sells, giving them to local charities as silent auction items, making them available to families who can’t afford them or providing them to youth ministers who want a motivating tool to improve Sunday School attendance.

“My passion is to get kids to have a love for reading,” she said.

To further that effort, the reading specialist this month rolled out a free, online newsletter called “Kidz Reading Tips” aimed at busy parents who want their children to succeed at reading. Each month, the newsletter will offer three tips, giving parents fun ways to engage their kids in wordplay.

The first tip in her inaugural newsletter is: “Get ‘em Writing.”  In a past life, Kirby worked as the director of fan mail for the San Diego Chargers, where she opened piles of letters and sent out all sorts of team materials in response. Using that experience, she advises readers of her online tips to write their favorite sports team and then read the letters they get back.

“And when they write those teams, they get free stuff — like decals,” Kirby said. “How fun is that?”

The online reading tips, Kirby hopes, will lead families to the richest book trove of all — the public library. Just as with her personalized children’s books, success in that setting depends on making it all about the reader.

“It’s got to be something they’re interested in,” she said. “If it’s a boy who loves baseball or a girl who loves ballet, you get that kid to the library and find a book on that subject.”

The big book Miss Pennington brought to class, once upon a time, has carried its author into print and online with her quest to hook kids on books for life.

“It’s gone from being a teacher to being a writer and back to helping children learn to read,” Kirby said, who never seems at a loss for new ways to reach kids.

In her writing studio, which doubles as an art space, she has created a collection of ornaments that, with the push of a button, sing the letters of the alphabet. After demonstrating how they work, Kirby turned from the ornament display, stopped, and looked back over her shoulder.

  “I sometimes feel like a candle with five wicks that are all burning at the same time,” she said. “I was just thinking that I could put the music buttons on the books, too. See what I mean?  I get an idea and the mind just goes.”

For more information on personalized children’s books or to sign up for the free reading newsletter, visit: www.carlabooks.com or e-mail Kirby at: Carla@kidzreadingtips.com