Barnard pens fourth children's book

Colleen Barnard, local author of children's books, held a book signing at the Phillips County Library in Malta on Saturday afternoon to promote her latest tale, Jerry the Spunky Little Loveable Longhorn Steer Calf.

Jerry is the story that looks to teach an important lesson to children about caring for all of God's animals, and does so in a playful and caring way. At the event on Saturday in Malta, Barnard's friend Cecilia Wilke made a slew of treats – including chocolate covered strawberries and Rice Crispy Treats – and Barnard provided a cooler full of sodas and an armful of candy bars for all that visited her.

Jerry, is the fourth children's book that Barnard has published with Tate Publishing. She said that her first book, Sarah the Seven Legged Spider, was inspired by an unlikely source...high school basketball. She said all the attention a select few from rural schools get for playing basketball was what inspired Sarah.

"I played a lot of sports in high school and college," said Barnard, who grew up in Saco. "I especially loved basketball.   I would work as hard as I could to be on the starting five.  We got all the attention in the school and I remembered looking at the rest of the students that were in the pep band, pep club, selling concessions,  or working as hard as they could to get good grades and thinking how unfair it was that they got a little blurb in the paper once in a while, but there was an entire section for sports."

Barnard said it was the same for the boy's basketball team in Saco as they had "three hot shot ball players that got all the attention."

"Sports are wonderful and teach so many things such as team work and discipline but I believe there is just too much emphasis," added Barnard.    "I decided I wanted to write children's books to help them with life.  Since I don›t have an immediate family, when I am gone all the wisdom from my parents will all be lost if it isn›t written down. I wanted to leave something to everyone instead of leaving some old tractors to a select few."

Barnard was raised on a diversified farm and ranch with a feedlot at Beaverton,  between Saco and Hinsdale.  She graduated from Saco High School in 1973, Montana State University in 1979 and studied at Purdue University.

She said that the inspiration for her latest book, Jerry the Spunky Little Loveable Longhorn Steer Calf, came from her mother.

"(She) would say the same exact thing every time she would drive by a roping arena" recalls Barnard. "Oh my, look at those poor abused roping steers with dry old hay to eat." I didn't think too much of it, as I hired ropers myself, until 20 years after her death.   When 600 or more teams rope one pen of steers over and over at a three day event, I believe that is animal abuse."

Barnard said that each of the books she has written take about one year to complete and though she comes up with the stories, others do the illustrations. She said that her father always taught her to have confidence in herself and what she attempts to achieve and that above all, hard work will see you to the finish line. When she wrote her first book, she had no idea if it would ever be published and that many people thought her dream of writing children books was foolish.

"Everyone, with the exception of one person, was a naysayer that wanted to impose their self-limiting beliefs on what I wanted to accomplish," said Barnard. "Some folks said that I couldn't just send the book in myself, that I had to hire a representative and some told me that it was quite possible that my manuscript would be rejected thousands of times before I would find a publisher.   One day I was reading the Billings Gazette and there was an article about a pediatrician that turned rancher from Lavina, that just had a children's book published by Tate so I called her.  I decided to send my book to Tate Publishing too.  They immediately accepted it!  I did not have to experience any of the nasty, cruel rejection letters I had been warned about!"

Barnard is firm on her beliefs on animal cruelty and gets inspiration from Mahatma Gandhi's philosophy on animals which is : "The greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way its animals are treated."

"I think cruel animal research for cosmetics should be banned,  forcing puppies to breathe cigarette smoke, to prove cigarettes are bad for you, skinning animals alive for fur trim on coats, and all animal cruelty is despicable," she said. "The world needs to be educated about such practices as the foie gras industry.  Workers ram pipes down male ducks› or geese›s throats two or three times daily and pump as much as four pounds of grain and fat into their stomachs all for rich people that believe the taste of fatty liver is a delicacy. It is my hope to leave an indelible kindness imprint for all God›s creatures on children›s hearts that read my little books."

Barnard said that being an author has both good and bad qualities. She said that the best part of being a writer is the freedom it provides. Barnard works on writing when she feels like it. On the other hand, she said, is sometimes the freedom gives people the wrong idea about her.

"The worst part would be the looks I get from people that come to the door and get me out of bed perhaps at 2:00 in the afternoon," said Barnard.  "I get the 'wow are you lazy look.' They don›t realize that I just may have been inspired with my writing and put in a 24 hour shift. My schedule is never consistent when I write.

Barnard said that the next children's book she is writing is going to be called Chopper, but added that the book is only in the starting phases. She said that Tate Publishing recently offered her a lifetime writers contract and will publish anything she writes. That offer from her publisher is not exclusive to children's books.

"I am working on my life story," Barnard said. "The name of my autobiography is, Quit Standing in Front of the Mirror Naked, He is not Coming."

To find any of Barnard's books, she said that most book stores carry them and if they are not on hand that the stores will order them for you. She said the most inexpensive place to buy her books is at gettextbooks.com

Since Barnard got some of her encouragement to write books from a newspaper article, she had this bit of advice to share with aspiring writers out there (or anyone on any topic.)

"My advice to not only aspiring writers but everyone is the advice my dad gave me years ago," said Barnard. "He said, 'time is short.  If you want to try something new, just do it.  If you want something, put a downer ( down payment ) on it and get it.  Don't be sitting around the nursing home wishing you would have tried something you wanted to but didn't'. "  Some of his advice is known as 'Vinceisms."