Personal qualities inspire “The Day Dirk Yeller Came to Town”
Mary Casanova had no intention of writing about a cowboy. In fact, she figured her next picture book would be about trains.
Yet, the words about a rough-around-the-edges, misunderstood outlaw came to her naturally the night that “The Day Dirk Yeller Came to Town” was born.
Casanova explained this story — her 25th book — was unlike those she has written before.
The award-winning author from Ranier remembers the night the idea came to her. “I was in New York City and I woke up at midnight with these words in my head: ‘The day Dirk Yeller came to town, the wind curled it’s lip, the cattle quit lowin’, and the tumbleweeds stopped tumblin’ along.’ They ended up being the opening words to the book.”
Unlike other authors she knows, Casanova doesn’t have a pen and paper next to her bed in case of a wee-hour stroke of inspiration.
“I try to sleep,” she said with a laugh.
So, when the sentence that sparked the story of Dirk Yeller sprang into her head, she used the first thing she could find to write it down — a piece of toilet paper.
“The story really came as a gift,” Casanova said, adding that she had a rough draft written in a matter of hours. “I have never come up with the idea for a complete book so quickly.”
The tale is about Dirk Yeller, who possesses a scruffy, bad boy appearance, but at heart his problem is he isn’t a strong reader. A young boy, Sam, who relates to the outlaw’s restless ways, is the one who risks standing in Dirk Yeller’s shadow and offers to show him something that will put him at peace — the town’s library.
Miss Jenny, the librarian, shows Dirk Yeller the right book and sure enough, his itchin’ and twitchin’ stops and he begins to sound out words with Sam’s help.
“It gets at the heart of why some people may struggle in life,” she said. “They may just not be good readers.”
Casanova admits Dirk Yeller’s character represents someone she knows very well — herself.
“I’m very much a Dirk Yeller,” she said with a grin. “I was a struggling reader. I have a heart for those kids who are restless and can’t sit still and they just need the right book at the right time. This story shows it is OK to face your fears. Positive outcomes may come from it.”
Casanova is not ashamed of her reading ability, or lack thereof, as a youngster. In fact, it has helped her grow as an author. As she writes, she challenges herself to write a book prompting readers to turn the pages. “It is my responsibility as a children’s author to keep them interested,” she said.
Ard Hoyt illustrated the book and he is no stranger to seeing his name next to Casanova’s on book covers. “The Day Dirk Yeller Came to Town” is Casanova and Hoyt’s fourth book together and three more are in the works.
When Casanova contacted Hoyt to illustrate this book, she said his response was, “You have to let me do this.”
Hoyt, who lives in Arkansas, has a heart for Texas outlaws, Casanova explained.
“We had to do a little tweaking to Dirk Yeller’s character, though,” the writer said. “When Ard first sent me a draft of Dirk, he was way too refined, I said we needed to rough him up a bit. Well, the second draft had lizards and snakes crawling all over him. We decided Dirk Yeller needed to be somewhere in the middle of the two.”
Casanova described the camaraderie between she and Hoyt as two oversized kids. “I really enjoy collaborating with Ard. His illustrations went way beyond what I could imagine. He was the missing piece to making the story fit,” she said.
As Casanova prepares for readers to devour her new book, she hopes it is as special to them as it is to her. She says she never imagined herself still writing after her first book was released in 1995.
“I thought that was all that was in me,” she said of her first book, “Moose Tracks.” “But now, I have a story like Dirk Yeller coming to me so distinctly. If all ideas came to me so well, I’d write a book a day. I trust I have a lot of stories ahead depending on how long I have on this Earth.”
A book signing for “The Day Dirk Yeller Came to Town” is planned for 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. Thursday at City Drug. For more information on Casanova, visit www.marycasanova.com or search ‘Mary Casanova’ on Facebook.
