Children along with their parents and grandparents celebrated books and literacy last Wednesday evening at Macaulay Public School in Bracebridge.

There was a book exchange table where the students dropped off books they had finished reading and picked up others that looked interesting. The table was a popular spot with avid readers discovering many treasures.

The stage was lined with new books donated by the Canadian Children’s Book Centre, a national, not-for-profit organization dedicated to encouraging, promoting and supporting the reading, writing and illustrating of Canadian books for young readers. Each child took home one free book.

“It’s an opportunity for parents to read with the kids,” said Ross Jewiss, Macaulay principal. “The first two literacy nights were set up as pyjama parties for the primary students. We all came in together, listened to an author, celebrated literacy and the kids were given a book and a quiet spot with mats where they could sit and read with their parents.”

This year’s event was organized by the school council and, for the first time, all the kids were invited.

“We always had kids on the periphery who wanted to come because lots of kids like reading,” he said. So this year two authors were invited.

Everyone congregated in the gymnasium where Caroline Rennie Pattison and Lizann Flatt, two local authors of children’s books, were introduced. Then those in grades 4 to 8 trekked across the hall to the library with Pattison while the younger ones stayed with Flatt in the gym.

Flatt’s writing career began at an early age with plays that she and her cousins performed at family gatherings. She wrote a neighbourhood newsletter and when she was 13 won a story contest in Owl magazine with A Tale of Two Hags.

After several years in the editorial department of Chickadee magazine in Toronto in various positions, including editor, she moved to Muskoka and divides her time between her family, her writing and teaching for the Institute of Children’s Literature.

Her published works include several non-fiction books, such as Let’s Go!: The Story of Getting from There to Here, a nonfiction picture book on the history of transportation in North America, a number of fictional stories and several magazine articles. She is the recipient of several awards for writing aimed at children.

Caroline Rennie Pattison is a teacher-consultant for Trillium Lakelands District School Board and lives in Muskoka with her husband and children. Her published works include The Law of Three: A Sarah Martin Mystery and The Whole, Entire, Complete Truth: A Sarah Martin Mystery.

The authors, with input from their audience, spoke of the writing process and how ideas are developed from a real-life incident or even something seen in the countryside into a story or poem.

The authors read from their books and stopped to talk about topics inside the book, where the ideas came from or who a certain character represented and how the idea came to continue the story.

“We know that some parents read to their children all the time, but we felt if we could get anyone introduced to reading with their kids that’s what this was all about,” said Jewiss.