Arthur the ardvark is still in school, but the book series he stars in, Arthur, is approaching its 35th birthday. To celebrate that, author Marc Brown will embark on a nationwide journey visiting schools and libraries`one for each year`to share the story of Arthur with the children and parents who have loved him through the decades. Lake Avenue Elementary School in Saratoga Springs is one of this stops on Wednesday, Oct. 20.
`I made a pledge I would go back to where it all started, with the kids, because I think of them as my boss,` said Brown.
`Arthur` was an accident. Brown had just lost his job teaching at a small college in Boston that closed. One night, his son asked him for a bedtime story about a weird animal. Brown chose an ardvark named Arthur and the story explored the unusual animal’s curiously long nose.
On a whim, he showed it to an editor and after six months of hard work learning how picture books are balanced between words and pictures, it was published in 1976. Brown said it was exciting but he never thought there would be another. Little did he know that `Arthur` would turn into a 100-plus book saga and become an Emmy award-winning PBS television series.
`I kind of put it away and hoped to build a career as an illustrator because that’s what I think of myself as,` said Brown.
Brown said the first book, `Arthur’s Nose,` started connecting with teachers and students, so he began visiting classrooms to talk about the book and illustrating. Just like the first book was born out of a story for his son, his next books emerged from students he encountered in his travels.
`One day I was visiting a school and there was a little boy who wouldn’t wear his glasses. A month later I was at another school and a little girl was wearing giant pink plastic frames with no lenses. She said ‘these are my movie star glasses. I wear them to help me concentrate and look beautiful,’ and I thought, I’ve got a story here. That’s where ‘Arthur’s Eyes’ was born,` said Brown.
Every `Arthur` story is based on real life, said Brown, from the topics they cover to the characters. He draws inspiration from letters he receives and his own family.
`I get about 100,000 letters a year from kids and many of them are ideas that they want to see Arthur and his friends have in book or television form,` said Brown. `Arthur is sort of me while I was in 3rd grade; I looked exactly like him. My sister who is a teacher in the area and lives in Saratoga Springs was my inspiration for Francine and another of my sisters was the inspiration for DW. I had a teacher that was like Mr. Ratburn and Grandma Thora was our grandmother who told us wonderful stories growing up.`
Brown said he turned down two other offers from network television to turn `Arthur` into an animated series before settling with PBS.
`I wanted to use TV to make kids want to read. I thought of my good friend Fred Rogers who I felt was brilliant in the way he used TV to help children and he was a mentor to me in encouraging me,` said Brown.
Brown said in the first 20 years he wrote `Arthur` books, around 5 million were in print. After `Arthur` debuted on the small screen, that number jumped to 50 million and now sits somewhere around 68 million. He’s been on a writing and illustrating hiatus for several years now, he said, but for the birthday celebration he’s taken up a routine again.
`I go to work every morning around 8 a.m. over the barn behind our house in Martha’s Vineyard and feel like the luckiest person in the world because I get to do what I love doing, everyday. It doesn’t get much better than that,` said Brown.
He said he’s excited to not only gather material for potential new books, he’s excited to read children the latest unpublished `Arthur` book he’s been working on, `Arthur Goes Green.`
`It is a book coming out next spring and it talks about what kids can do to play a part in helping our environment,` said Brown.
His favorite books have been `Arthur’s Teacher Trouble` and `DW’s Guide to Preschool.` He said he isn’t opposed to creating more Arthur adventures, so long as they’re stories that are meaningful to him as an author and the kids that are his audience.
Brown will present a special program for children and familiest on Wedneday, Oct. 20, at 7 p.m. in the auditorium at Lake Avenue Elementary School. The program is free and non-residents of the Saratoga Springs School District can obtain tickets beginning Saturday, Oct. 16.
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