Cindy Harris began writing when she was nine-years-old while living on a farm in Wahoo, Neb. Although there wasn’t much to write about watching cows, she says she enjoys looking back on her journal and seeing the difference between these first writings to her children’s story that was recently published.
Harris has kept at her writing since she was nine, through her move to our city she calls home, and even through her 27 years at the Miller & Martin firm as a secretary in the real estate and estate planning departments.
This venture into children’s book writing is the first time Harris has tried writing fiction, and she says the plan was to come up with a name and idea that children would remember and would be different. This way, when they put the book down, children would walk away having learned something, such as a character trait of some kind.
Harris came up with an acronym for the phrase “random act of kindness every day,” which turned into her main character, Raoke Day in this first book, called “Raoke and the Camp Raid.”
In this book, Raoke Day, a cute cartoon raccoon, has been taught to always be kind, but is faced with a tough decision when his buddies are up to no good and he wants to do right. Day’s actions encourage children to perform a random act of kindness every day, Harris says.
Harris says she had seen a newspaper article where a lady had published a book a few years ago through Tate Publishing, who will look at unknown authors, and after she wrote five Raoke stories she thought, “Why not?”
“I thought: ‘If they like them, then good. If not, I’ll still keep writing because I like to write and I like Raoke,’” Harris says. “I sent them three stories and they loved them. They said they would like to do a series, but I said ‘Let’s sell book number one first, and then do book number two.’”
Harris recently participated in the Read Across America program, for which she visited local elementary schools and read her book to the children, answering their questions and emphasizing the need to be kind to and respect others and how to perform a random act of kindness every day. The Read Across America program was the first time Harris read to children, and she says she was a little nervous until she met the kids.
“They took to it, loved the book, loved Raoke, and when you have a kid come up afterwards and say, ‘I loved your story; thank you for coming to our school,’ that made it worth it,” Harris says. “Even my little granddaughter, who is six and goes to McConnell Elementary, came up to me and told me she did a random act of kindness. For a 6-year-old to get it means everything to me.”
The older children she read to were interested in the production of the book in who drew the pictures, how it was printed and other technical questions. The kindergartners had lots of questions too, but mostly about the raccoons Harris laughs.
And Harris says she encouraged every one of them, relating her own story of how she began writing at nine, to write and save their material so that when they get older, they can reread it. Harris also encouraged them to read and gain this valuable skill for life.
Harris says, the story within Raoke and the Camp Raid is based on a real life encounter with a band of raccoons that raided Harris’s campsite and ate all the food from the mini-refrigerator, coolers and all the totes outside, a story children love to hear.
When Harris wrote these stories a couple of years ago, she says there wasn’t much talk about bullying as there is now. Princi-pals and librarians that she speaks to say that this is what their students need to hear, and Harris says everyone can take the advice from Raoke in being kind.
“It doesn’t matter how much money you have, what race you are, where you live or where you go to school. You can be kind, and that’s important to me. I tried to tell my boys growing up, ‘Be kind to people. You respect people for who they are,’ and that was just important to me,” Harris says.
Miller & Martin hosted Harris’s first book signing for her, an act that meant a lot to her and seemed only fitting with the support her co-workers have given her, she says.
“They are good friends, and I have worked with a lot of them for years, so it was special to have it here. So many of them came and supported me, and they’ve gone through this process with me and know me well, constantly asking me when the book is coming and when they can get it,” she says.
Harris says she also loves the feeling of being able to give back to the community and schools, especially returning to read at Harrison Elementary School where her children attended.
Harris hopes to publish the other Raoke stories she has written and to keep writing in whichever direction that takes her. As Harris has time off from work, she plans to do future further promotion of the book by reading in the schools to her target audience.
“It matters that the children like it because that is who you are gearing the book toward,” she says. “It’s great when an adult likes it, but when a kid raises their hand and tells me, ‘I love your book, and I want book number two,’ that’s great.”
“Raoke and the Camp Raid” can be purchased online at Tatepublishing.com or pre-ordered on Amazon.com for the March 22 release, when it will be available at bookstores.
To find where to purchase a copy of Harris’s book, visit http://raokeday.tateauthor.com/.