Basic HTML Version
Campus News
IC NEWSLETTER -
SUMMER 2009 15
Middle school students got to meet
award winning children’s author Kirby
Larson in April during the author’s
visit to Beirut. Clutching her book,
Hattie Big Sky, students made their
way to the Issam Fares Hall in the
elementary school and listened to her
entertaining account of how she got
the idea of writing the book which
took four years of research.
It all began when her beloved
grandmother
suffering
from
Alzheimer’s disease suddenly said one
day “the only time ‘Mom’ was afraid
was in the winter when wild horses
stampeded,” recalled Larson.
Curious, Larson asked various aunts
about their family’s history. Larson
found out that her great-grandfather
had married a woman called Hattie
to help care for his children (one of
whom was Larson’s grandmother).
Further research revealed that Hattie
Brooks, at 16, had set out on her own
to live in Montana as a homesteader
in 1914.
Larson knew then that she had
stumbled on the perfect topic for a
book. Hattie Big Sky was published
in 2006 and won the prestigious
Newberry Honor a year later.
Larson had many positive tips for IC
student writers and encouraged them
to “never give up.”
She also had a working lunch with a
select group of 9th grade students
from both the English and French
programs.
Larson’s latest book that she co-
authored with Mary Nethery, Two
Bobbies: A True Story of Hurricane
Katrina, Friendship, and Survival, was
published last year.
Kirby Larson
meets with students