Blog: Local Author Helps Kids Discover the Wonder of Words

If enthusiasm sold books, Glendora author Kev Connard would be a rich man. But selling books isn’t Connard’s priority. His mission is twofold: to dispel the 2012 doomsday myths surrounding the Mayan calendar and to get kids excited about reading.

“I wanted to create a book that was really interesting, an adventure, a book that would keep the page turning, keep kids involved, get them to continue the love of reading,” said Connard.

Connard’s book Hollymac, released in January of this year, was a long time in the making according to this fifth-grade teacher and father. “The hardest part about it was finding the time,” said Connard, who wrote on weekends while juggling work and family life with his wife Nancy and two daughters.

The book was born out of his obsession with the Mayan culture which was introduced to him as a young boy by a grade-school teacher. It centers around a 15-year-old protagonist who is called to Belize by his archeologist father who has discovered some artifacts preserved in a ship's hold.

Connard's fascination with the Maya was fueled by family subscriptions to National Geographic and Smithsonian which he would comb for information about this ancient culture. According to Connard, indigenous people have been consistently misrepresented by historians, even in present-day textbooks, and he says the 2012 prophecy is a gross misinterpretation of the Mayan calendar.

“This whole doomsday thing is being erroneously represented on television and in the media, and I just wanted to let kids know there is an alternative to that kind of thought,” said Connard, who offers that alternative in the book.

Hollymac, both the title and the lead character’s nickname, is an adventurous coming-of-age story sprinkled with Mayan history and Fountain of Youth mythology. But it is also a teacher’s gift to his students. Connard’s mission to motivate kids to read stems in part from his own experience in school as an unmotivated reader.

“I’ve written the book for reluctant readers,” said Connard. “I have my fifth-grade kids reading 15-20 novels a year. But a lot of these kids, whose reading was really blossoming, stop reading for pleasure when they get into middle school.”

Encouraged to finish this young adult book by a cadre of loyal students at Ocean View Elementary School in Whittier, Connard self published it and has received some great initial feedback.

“I heard from a 12-year-old girl who had never read a book in her life, and she finished this one. That makes it all worth it,” said Connard, who is already working on the sequel for this trilogy— an adventure which finds the lead character flying to Pakistan to discover clues about the ancient Indus Valley civilization. Hollymac can be purchased on Connard’s website.

Regardless of the success of his books, Connard has no plans to quit his day job. He and his wife Nancy, a tutor for the local adult literacy program, are dedicated to teaching others to read, and fostering a love of books. 

Nancy started tutoring after a job layoff in the financial sector, and finds it rewarding to see the added independence reading offers adult learners. She says some people in the program simply slipped through the cracks of the educational system. Others moved frequently as children, had medical problems, learning disabilities, or were able to disguise their reading struggles.

"Many learners are quite bright, but were told they were stupid, or couldn’t learn, so they developed ways to compensate without letting on to their struggle," says Literacy Coordinator Mary Pat Dodson.

Glendora Reads! serves adults in Glendora and surrounding cities, most of whose overall reading ability is at a sixth-grade reading level or lower. There will be a training seminar for prospective new tutors on Saturday, April 14th from 9:30– 3:30 p.m.at the Glendora Public Library’s Bidwell Forum Auditorium located upstairs. For more information, contact Mary Pat at (626) 852-4897.