Cd'A author launches reading program for kids

COEUR d’ALENE — For most 8-year-olds, a half-hour can be an eternity.

Especially in a classroom situation.

Especially after just returning from the playground on a gorgeous autumn day.

Especially when it means sitting on the floor and listening to a stranger read from a book.

Potentially, it was a tough audience. But Coeur d’Alene author Kristin Herby pulled it off. Her young listeners at Fernan Elementary were not only well-behaved and attentive, but they were riveted — pretty much spellbound.

Admittedly, Herby had some things working in her favor — like the fact that the main character in the children’s novel is a puppy.

Then there’s the fired-up factor. “Stewy Baby Finds a Home” is Herby’s first published work, and she has big plans.

It’s all part of Stories with Stewy, a reading incentive program she has launched with financial and moral support from Post Falls car dealer Eve Knudtsen. “Stewy Baby Finds a Home” is the first in a series of books she plans to write and use as the principal tool in the program designed for second- and third-graders.

“It’s something that came to me later in life and I just went with it,” said 50-year-old Herby. “And now I’ve discovered it’s something I’m passionate about and, I guess, fairly good at.”

Herby is no newcomer to writing. She is working on a book about infertility, an issue with which she once struggled. And she collaborated last year with her playwright father, Tom Cooper, to create a musical called “The Clink.”

But Stories with Stewy is more of a mission. Herby and Knudtsen not only want to instill a love of reading in young children but to help them cross the bridge from rudimentary readers to more thought-provoking chapter novels — and in the case of second-graders, to get parents involved in the learning process.

“Parents get lost in doing their own thing with their computers or whatever,” Herby said. “So my thought was to get parents to help their kids learn to read the chapter books and get excited about learning and just have a little fun time.”

Herby said the concept came to her about four years ago. She wrote a couple chapters and submitted them to New York publishing agents who responded positively and asked to see the entire book. Herby cranked out the rest of “Stewy Baby Finds a Home” and sent it off.

As the process with the distant publishing agents mired down, Herby decided to move on in a different direction. She attended a three-day writing workshop in Big Sur, Calif., rewrote the book and submitted it to Bitterroot Mountain Publishing in Hayden. “Stewy Baby Finds a Home” hit the streets about a month ago.

Herby then won approval for the project from the Coeur d’Alene School District and started her search for benefactors. She approached Knudtsen hoping for financial backing for a single school. Instead, she received $9,000 to finance the project in all 11 Coeur d’Alene elementary schools.

Knudtsen, co-owner and president of Knudtsen Chevrolet and a strong supporter of public education for years, said Herby’s program was an easy decision.

“Written communication is suffering. There’s something to be said for visually seeing the words printed on the page,” she said. “I want kids to read. I want them to like to read.

“There’s terrific potential here.”

Bitterroot Publishing has already agreed to a second book, which is essentially complete along with three others, and four more that are “partially complete.”

Herby said she’s scheduled to take the program to the Sandpoint School District in January.

Knudtsen is committed to supporting Stories with Stewy in Coeur d’Alene “for as long as it takes,” but Herby is searching for benefactors in Sandpoint and wherever else the program finds a home.

The book series is based on her family’s adventures and misadventures after adopting a Labrador/Australian shepherd puppy, but told through the eyes of Stewy.

Herby said the program costs about $300 per classroom. Every student receives an autographed copy of the book and is encouraged to take it home and read every day. The class receives a stuffed toy version of Stewy as a mascot. Over a four-week period the kids keep a log of their total reading minutes. After reaching a reading-minute goal, students receive a Stories with Stewy backpack. The student with the most minutes gets to take the Stewy mascot home. The school classroom with the most total minutes gets a pizza party and a visit from the real Stewy.

For her part, Herby receives 60 percent from the sale of each $6 book, which is subsidized by the program benefactors. Stories with Stewy is free for the schools.

“More than likely, I’m not going to become a zillionaire from this, but that’s OK,” she said. “The reward is what happens in the schools with the children... just to see the excitement and joy in their faces. The smiles.”

The whole process begins with a visit from Herby to establish a student/Stewy connection by reading the first chapter aloud to the class. Hopefully, that initial connection carries over to a commitment to discover the rest of Stewy’s story on their own.

As Herby wrapped up the Fernan Elementary reading and explained how the program works, she asked the third-graders what they plan to do when they get home.

“Read!” came a clamorous chorus.

“Stewy Baby Finds a Home” is available locally at The Well Read Moose in Coeur d’Alene and Barnes & Noble in the Spokane Valley as well as from Amazon online.