Friday, November 22, 2013
By ABBY SLANKER
Hilltop Elementary School third-grade students recently hosted a special visitor just in time to help celebrate Halloween. “The Forgotten Pumpkin” author Hugh Earnhart and his wife, Mary Kay, visited the third-grade classrooms to read the book to the students and discuss being an author and to explain the writing process.
Earnhart, a retired history professor at Youngstown State University, explained to the students the inspiration for the story of his book.
“I drove by a pumpkin field one day and saw the farmer picking up all the pumpkins to sell. I didn’t think much of it. A couple days later, I drove by again and saw a large pumpkin next to the woods. I drove by again a day or so later and the big pumpkin was still there, all by itself. I decided I had to save this pumpkin and the best way to do it was to save it in a story,” Earnhart said.
Earnhart then came up with the idea for his book, which not only features the big pumpkin, but a group of forest animals who help the pumpkin.
“The forest gang, as I call them, consists of a raccoon, squirrel, rabbit, beaver, snake, deer, owl, fox, mouse and blue jay. They work together, along with Willy the Siamese cat and a basset hound, to help the forgotten pumpkin be happy,” Earnhart said.
In writing the book, Earnhart said he didn’t realize it at first, but he was teaching cooperation.
“The forest gang works together as a unit toward one objective - to make the forgotten pumpkin happy. Whenever you work together as a group or team and when you all cooperate, things get done. Miracles can happen,” Earnhart said.
Mary Kay Earnhart, a retired elementary school teacher, read the book to the students and walked them through the illustrations. At the end of the story, she asked the children to read the last line together with her and they all said, “The pumpkin was so happy, happy, happy!”
“That’s the trademark for future books. Everyone ends up happy, happy, happy,” Earnhart said.
Earnhart took questions from the students and told them the basis for his next book.
“In the next book, the forest gang gets on a bus and goes to Washington D.C. Can you imagine sitting on a bus and seeing a deer get on, and then a beaver and then a fox?” Earnhart asked the students.
The Earnharts, of Poland, were invited to read to the students by third-grader Cameron Burnett, whose family is friends with the Earnhart family.
After several questions from the students, both Mary Kay and Hugh Earnhart left the children with a bit of advice.
“Write about things you know about,” Mary Kay told the students.
“Look around while you are walking around out there. There is a tremendous amount of activity which we don’t take advantage of. We have tunnel vision. So many animals are out there and they are our friends. And if you are writing now, be sure to keep your ideas somewhere. It is always nice to be able to go back and look at them,” Hugh said.
Earnhart signed and donated a copy of “The Forgotten Pumpkin” to Hilltop Elementary School’s library.