Doing the ‘Write’ Thing

What started out as a fun father-son activity ended up helping Jason McConnell, of Beaver Dam, mark an item off his bucket list when he published his very own children’s book.

McConnell, who is also the principal at Fordsville Elementary School, would tell his youngest son, Cooper, bedtime stories each night. They created a whole cast of characters and made up stories of their adventures. McConnell had always wanted to write a children’s book and with the encouragement of his wife, Coren, the stories he and his son told at bedtime became the basis of his book.

“I already had these stories I shared with my son at night so we just decided to turn it into a book,” he said. “It was something fun at night and it developed into creating these characters.”

Marty’s World tells of the adventures of Marty Meerkat and his animal friends. The book introduces seven different characters and walks the reader through a day in their lives on the Savanna Plains. Marty is the leader of his group of friends and the story begins at sunrise as the characters make their way to their hang out at Savanna Lake and ends at sunset with all the friends getting ready for bed.

“It talks about

friendships,” McConnell said. “It talks about the dynamics in a friend group. You might have that protector or one that is always ready to do whatever is needed, the one who can make you laugh or the one you can always count on.”

McConnell said he couldn’t have completed the book without the help of his illustrator Brandon Brocato.

“I wrote the story, but Brandon made it come to life. Otherwise, it is just a story I told my son at night.”

McConnell said Brocato took the vision of the characters and was able to produce them exactly as McConnell had them in his head. Marty Meerkat was created with some of Cooper’s characteristics, McConnell said, including his faux-hawk, freckles and big blue eyes.

“Marty is kind of based on my youngest son,” he said.

He said all the characters’ illustrations have “somewhat of a human quality and it just makes the story work. It would just be a simple story if we didn’t have the illustrations to go along with it.”

McConnell said teaching and parenthood as well, as life experiences, helped him with his writing. Being an educator, McConnell created his book to be a learning tool as well.

One thing McConnell wanted to make sure he did in the book was create a story with animals that would actually live in the same habitat.

“I searched for a place on Earth where these animals could live together and I came up with Uganda, Africa,” he said.

At the end of the book, there is educational information about Uganda as well as how to say certain words in Swahili, one of the official languages in the country.

There are also facts about each animal as well as activities for the reader.

There are several other characters and stories that McConnell created during those bedtime stories. He said he was open to doing more books to create a type of series on each of the characters.

“I have two or three more that I could turn into stories,” he said. “It’s even been suggested that each character have their own stories told from their perspective.”

The book was something that McConnell said he and Brocato did in their spare time but they are both open to doing more depending on the timing and how receptive people are to Marty’s World.

The book was self-published through Barnes and Noble and was available for purchase on the store’s website as of Feb. 1 or can be purchased from McConnell or at Soreheads in Hartford.