Tamra Norton is a popular young adult and children’s author. She has agreed to answer some questions just for Families.com today.
Tamra, I recently reviewed “Make Me a Memory” here on Families.com and I’m sure that many of our readers are wondering how you came up with the idea for this remarkable book. Can you share that with us?
A few years back I was sitting in my family room in Texas watching some news coverage from Fort Hood where group of soldiers were being deployed to Iraq. They were saying goodbye to their families and I found myself completely and emotionally caught up in the moment. The thought occurred to me, these people—these families—aren’t super human. They are just like you and me. The main difference is that they’ve been given this unique set of circumstances with a parent, spouse, son or daughter being deployed. I was especially drawn to the children. I tried to put myself in their mindset and wondered how they would handle this time away from their parent. I instantly knew in my heart there was a story to tell . . . and I wanted to tell it.
Brandi Carroll, a school councelor at Cedar Valley Elementary School in Killeen, Texas, recently applied for a grant and used the money to purchase every child in the school a copy of your book. You were invited to come to an assembly and meet with the children. How did it feel to be a part of this fantastic project? Did the children seem excited to have an author come to the school?
Being a “tool” in this project has been such an incredible experience. I can hardly express the happiness I feel knowing that somehow the words that I wrote have inspired a project that will likely impact the lives of thousands, even reaching half-way around the world to soldiers who are hoping that someone is preserving memories back home while they are serving abroad. If there’s one thing in my life that I’ve learned, it’s that memories are fragile. If we don’t take the time to record them in some form or fashion, whether through words or pictures, they often fade away. And as the mother of seven children, I especially know how fast children change and grow. One single year in a child’s life can bring about tremendous transformations—physical, emotional, mental and even spiritual. Through this project, the children will not only realize the importance of recording these memories, but they will receive help from the school staff, and maybe even be turned on to the joys of reading and writing. For me, that’s the icing on the cake!
Join us tomorrow for the rest of the interview with author Tamra Norton.