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 You don’t see too many story tellers around grade
school children who can get them to sit still and listen to four
books. That is some of the magic Metzger has in his presentations to
the children. He banters back and forth with the children to see if
they get the gist of his stories, and even gets to them to tell him
their ideas.
Listening to Mr. Metzger read stories he authored is an integral
part of learning for the grade schoolers at Adam’s Elementary
School. The students have worked together to write and publish some
books. One story is about Captain Fidget, who has Fidget cycles. The
students and teachers are now in the process of voting for what the
book covers will be.
Metzger’s first reading from his works is named,
Detective Blue. The author published it in 2011, and it received a
starred review from School Library Journal. He read from his land of
mysteries incorporating classic nursery rhyme characters. That story
telling involved the children and their parents reciting nursery
rhymes of Little Boy Blue, Hey Diddle Diddle, Jack Sprat, and Miss
Muffet's Tuffet.
Of course, in his book, Detective Blue sees a bowl of
curds and whey that had gotten cold and found that Miss Muffet was
missing. After searching and meeting a number of nursery rhyme
characters such as Little Bo Peep, the Muffin Man, and Humpty Dumpty
who said Miss Muffet went to find some better tasting curds and whey
and porridge, the children cautioned Detective Blue not to slap
Humpty Dumpty on the back or else he would break to pieces. But he
did slap Humpty Dumpty on the back in a pal-like gesture and, of
course, he broke to pieces.
The grade schoolers also guessed that the next place
to look for Miss Muffet was at the three bears house. A spider,
sitting in the corner, had told Blue that Goldilocks told Miss
Muffet where to get some yummy porridge. Miss Muffet was at the
bears house! Detective Blue had found Miss Muffet and the case was
closed!
Book two was a delightful story called, ‘Pluto Visits
the Earth.’ It was published in 2012 and earned ABC best book for
children. It was written when scientists decided to unmake Pluto a
planet and have eight planets in the solar system. The reason due to
space things following the planet in its orbit, where other planets
do not have this happening. “This is a book of how Pluto strikes
back like in Star Wars,” Steve Metzger said. A boy intently
listening to the story remarked, “maybe it was April fools that it’s
not a planet.”
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So Pluto gets inquisitive and asks the moon, “Am I smaller than
you?” And of course Pluto is smaller, yet has three moons orbiting plus the two
moons scientists have discovered. Pluto zooms toward earth and the other planets
think of excuses not to help; Jupiter is grouchy, Mars was celebrating Martian
Day, and Saturn was adoring her rings, and so forth.
Finally, Pluto gets next to the earth, and asks the astronomers why it is a
dwarf planet all the way at the back of the solar system. Pluto is sort of sad
until a child from earth says Pluto is his favorite planet and the best! Pluto
became happy again, but hurried home because he was melting for he was made of
ice.
Metzger then told the children to be a planet there are requirements:
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Must be round
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Must orbit around
the sun.
It takes 330 earth years for Pluto to orbit the sun.
Metzger then read an ingenious story named “Toto’s Story: My amazing adventures
with Dorothy in Oz!”’ This book was published in 2016.
He read an excerpt from a chapter in the book about Dorothy’s adventures inside
of the witches castle. Her glass slippers are originally silver and the witch
tries to get Dorothy to take them off and get comfortable so she can take her
slippers. Dorothy declines the offer and the witch knocks off a shoe. Toto
barks, perhaps in disapproval of the witch doing such a thing to Dorothy.
Dorothy begins to drip water on the wicked witch and she begins to melt. Toto
has a friend back home and he wants Dorothy to say goodbye to the Emerald City
and get out of Munchkin Land.
A must read!
The Dancing Clock published in 2011 was the last story read by Mr. Metzger. It
is a fun idea about the actual New York City Zoo’s clock.
“It sort of pays omage to the clock,” said Metzger.
The author uses the zesty character of a hard-headed monkey who loves his clock
more than his friends and gets locked outside of the zoo one night. The
zookeeper finds the monkey and opens the zoo’s gate. It is then the monkey
realizes “a clock can be special, but not like a friend.” The zesty monkey
adores his friends happily ever after.
About Steve Metzger: He is an award-winning author of more than 20 books for
children. He grew up in Queens, New York. He has a younger sister, Lois, also a
writer of young adult books.
Mr. Metzger had a variety of jobs before finding his true calling, working with
children. He received a teaching degree and spent 15 years as a classroom
teacher. Then he worked for Scholastic, where he had the opportunity to write
children’s books.
He lives in NYC with his wife, teenage daughter, and Biscuit, his talkative cat!
[Catherine Carkulis]
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