Working with kids is a joy, whether reading aloud to–and with–them, or teaching them to write. And nothing can get me more excited about being a writer of children’s stories than a day with kids.
Here is a collage of some of my favorite times with kids, sharing the magic of story.
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As a Cricket Magazine author, I had the chance to organize and participate in several Cricket 30th Anniversary celebrations and readings in my part of the world.
David Domkoski’s staff at the lovely old Tacoma Main Library organized a Cricket birthday party, complete with birthday cake.
We invited Cricket authors from Washington State and Oregon, and here we all are together, Teresa Bateman, Lori Ann Glover, Carolyn Digby Conahan, Carmen Bernier-Grand, myself and Kirby Larson.
We all read our stories and Carolyn drew cricket bugs on a big sheet of paper.
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My librarian friend, Lori Ann Callison, arranged a reading and Cricket party at the Parkland-Spanaway branch of the Pierce County Library.
We had copies of the Cricket issue with my story in it to give away, and the kids all asked me to autograph their copy, which was very fun.
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The final Cricket anniversary event I participated in was the Lucia Celebration at the Nordic Heritage Museum in Seattle, because one of my Cricket stories is a Scandinavian story, “Lucia,” about the Lucia Bride tradition of the oldest girl in the family serving breakfast to her family on the shortest day of the year.
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Sometimes our golden retriver, Jake, comes along. Then we make
sure we read a dog book, like Go, Dog, Go, or Good Dog Carl, or Harry McClary.
Claudia Riiff Finseth 
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