By Faith Odom
Children’s author Jasper Price and his wife Angie led a story time at Lincoln Parish Library last Friday.
This event contained the book, “A ZOMBIE ASOCKALYPSE,” where the husband and wife duo have a performance to the young crowd.
Jasper Price explained to the audience how he wrote the book and what inspired him to write it.
“I like writing about going on adventures with friends, because to me going on an adventure is fun but going on an adventure with friends is the best,” he said.
He has two picture books and four middle grade novels, and his third picture book will be coming out later this month called, “Interrobang.” This story contains a question mark and an exclamation point learning what an interobang is.
Jasper and Angie described why this event was important for kids.
“We both enjoy books,” Jasper said. “And we enjoy little kids enjoying books. Personally, I would love reading and science to be as popular as NFL football.”
Angie echoed his sentiments.
“I think the biggest thing for young readers to get them interested in reading is to engage with them through a story and once you do that then you teach them that reading is a lot of fun and it can be an adventure,” she said. “Your world is not enriched if these things are not introduced to you at an early age.”
Steve and Leigha Martin brought their two children to the library event and said their son’s favorite thing about it was the zombie socks.
“We came because of our boy,” Leigha said. “He wanted to meet a real author. We have been to all the library events this summer — the magic shows and the animal ones.”
The Lincoln Parish library holds many events throughout the summer to give the Ruston community many opportunities for all ages. Children’s department librarian Lily Everett explained why Jasper Price was the perfect choice for their program and why it’s so important to have many events in the summer for children.
“We were looking into a lot of kids’ events and his storytelling really stood out,” Everett said. “He is very interactive, and you can tell that he is really passionate about what he does. He’s very energetic and he cares about what he is doing. And that is something we look for when we look at children’s events.
“Libraries are a great resource, and you might not know the resources that we have if you don’t see our fun events and see we are more than just books. We want to bring people together and discover all we do.”
The next children’s event at Lincoln Parish Library is the Wild World Animals program, where participants will learn all about animals and get to see them up close. It will be held from 2-3 p.m. Wednesday, July 17.
