National author excites students to read and write

SALT LAKE CITY — "If you want to write fiction, just start with what you know, and mess it up," said John Scieszka, nationally acclaimed author. He is traveling across the country getting students excited about reading.

Scieszka wrote "The Stinky Cheese Man," which he said came from the "Gingerbread Man," he had to read to his daughter at least a million times. He spoke to more than 600 third through eighth grade students at Saint Ambrose Catholic Church Oct. 6. They came from the J.E. Cosgriff Memorial School, the Madeleine Choir School, Our Lady of Lourdes School, Salt Lake City, Beacon Heights Elementary School, and Bonneville Middle School. Schieszka uses humor and wacky characters to create stories children of all ages want to read. He was sponsored by J.E. Cosgriff Memorial School and The King’s English Bookstore.

Scieszka also is the author of "Other Stupid Fairy Tales," "The True Story of the Three Little Pigs," "Math Curse," "The Book That Jack Wrote," and his latest memoir "Knucklehead: Tall Tales and Almost True Stories of Growing Up Schieszka."

He went to Catholic school from the first grade through ninth grade in Michigan. He taught first grade through eighth grade.

One day, Schieszka woke up and decided to turn everything into a math problem. The result was his book "The Math Curse."

"I love math and science," said Schieszka. "I studied pre-medicine, but it was not until I graduated from college that I thought about what I wanted to do with my life. I always liked writing and reading. So I went to Columbia University and got a Master’s Degree in fiction writing.

"After painting for a while, I taught elementary school for 10 years, and that is where I really discovered my audience," said Schieszka. "Teaching school made me such a passionate believer in how smart kids are, and how if we present things to them in a good way, they can accomplish all kinds of things. I found second graders, who were just learning to read and write, could do some pretty amazing things."

Schieszka was selected in January 2008, as the Ambassador for the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C., and the Children’s Book Council in New York, a trade organization for all the publishers.

"They created this position to have one person as a spokesperson for children’s books and to connect with parents, to try to get kids to read," said Schieszka. "Statistics show over the past 25 years that kids are reading less and less."

Schieszka said there are various parts to this problem. More parents are working and not at home as much. There are also so many things competing with a student’s time and attention such as sports, gymnastics, video games, computers, and cell phones. Schieszka said when he was growing up there were only four channels, now there are hundreds of channels. Testing has also worked against kids wanting to read because they associate it with a test.

"I would read out of boredom," said Schieszka. "Let children read what they enjoy even if it is a comic book, or something they like. Just so they reading."