BN- Readers of The Marshfield Mail may be familiar with Len Hart because of his weekly column on behalf of the anti-abuse organization...
BN- Readers of The Marshfield Mail may be familiar with Len Hart because of his weekly column on behalf of the anti-abuse organization, Guardians of the Children.
GOC is a nonprofit organization that seeks to recognize and respond to child abuse, educate the public about steps they can take to get involved and create a safe environment for neglected and abused children.
In addition to his work as court liaison with GOC, Hart reads and writes books for children in the Head Start Program at Mountain Grove.
Hart started reading books at Mountain Grove’s Head Start program in 2011. He also has read to the Head Start program children in Marshfield and Lebanon, but mostly reads to the children in Mountain Grove.
During one of the programs, he asked all of them to think of things they would like to have in a story and have their teacher create a list.
“Two weeks later, I received an email with a list of 22 different things that the children picked,” said Hart. “I had to take out some of them because they were copyrighted material, like Spongebob and Wonder Woman.”
He received various ideas, such as puppy dogs, princesses and big green tractors. After thinking it over, Hart decided to create a story about their choices, starting his “For the Children” series.
Hart’s first book in the series is titled “Rrrr, Rrrr, Rrrr,” a story about a pirate captain. He said he wanted stories that could teach things like colors and shapes, so he wrote his second book, “Bobby Likes Wheels,” and third book, “Betty Likes Ribbons.”
His fourth book, “Bozo The Biker,” was written just for fun about his friend who reads to the Head Start children in Lebanon. He read his newest book, “The Lake with the Funny Name,” on Sept. 24.
Hart and his wife, Margie, published “The Monster Truck” for a little girl named Lillyan Delores Quinn. When she was only 5, Quinn told the story to Margie, who wrote it down for her. They asked her if she would like them to make it into a book.
“Margie did all the illustrations while I did the layout, typesetting and uploading to our publisher,” said Hart.
Quinn’s book is available at lulu.com, but also available as an e-book download on Amazon.com. Her second book has yet to be published, according to Hart.
Hart has written about 30 books, including his “For the Children” series, some poem books and Christian books. He said he is not in the writing business for the money.
“None of it has ever been about making money,” said Hart. “My reward is watching the children smile.”
Source: http://marshfieldmail.com/news/biker-writes-book-series-for-children/article_90abd1e6-6bb3-11e5-9a56-974c05528020.html
