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Teacher to roll out new ‘Mortimer the Moose’ book

BY SRIANTHI PERERA

GSN Contributor

Gilbert music and elementary school teacher Kathie McMahon has found the perfect way to influence kids now that she is retired.

She is writing a middle-grade chapter novel series featuring fictional 8-yearold Jimmy Robertson, whose clumsy new friend happens to have a pair of antlers: A moose called Mortimer who teams with him in “Mortimer and Me.”

McMahon taught children from fourth to sixth grade at Roosevelt and Kerr elementary schools in Mesa for 20 years and retired in 2005. “I realized my voice is with the kids that I taught,” she said. Hence, she delved into middle-grade fiction. Book one is “Mortimer and Me,” book two is titled “The Bigfoot Mystery,” book three is “Moose for Hire” and book four is “Moose in Space.” The first three books received Story Monsters awards. McMahon will launch book five – “The House on Briarwood Lane – during a Halloween-themed event from 10:30 a.m. to noon on Oct. 30 at HD SOUTH Home of the Gilbert Museum. The books, self-published with illustrations by Tom Tate, are available on Amazon, and suitable for kids ages 6-9.

In “The House on Briarwood Lane,” an old abandoned mansion suddenly has a “sold” sign in the front yard after sitting vacant for more than five years.

A light in the attic glows every night and Jimmy swears he sees a face in the window. But no one ever notices anyone going in or out. Things get even more mysterious when Lily’s cat, Muffin, goes missing, and an anonymous ransom note is delivered.

The series was born from the bedtime tales the author’s dad used to relate about a donkey named Mortimer. McMahon decided to make him a moose during a trip to Alaska, inspired by a gift store picture of a moose wearing sunglasses.

Because Arizona is not moose habitat, McMahon placed him in Wisconsin, where her family descended from. She moved the red-haired and freckled Jimmy from Arizona to Peabody, Wisconsin.

Friendship, team effort, co-education and acceptance are recurring themes in the stories because they are issues that pertain to her young readers. “Overall, the whole series is about: find out what you’re good at, and accept what you’re not good at and just shine wherever you can shine and just accept other people where they are,” McMahon said. Thanks to Jim and Mortimer’s growing clientele of fans, the author doesn’t lack for ideas. During school visits to promote the books, McMahon receives plenty. McMahon is working on another middlegrade novel about a 10-year-old on a cross country trip with his eccentric grandmother. She has also completed a first draft of a historical fiction novel for young adults based on her own family’s ancestry: her father descended from a family of Cornish miners in England who came to the United States during the Civil War. Where a genealogical search lacks, she fills the gaps with her creativity.

“It’s fascinating,” she said, of the novel’s content.

McMahon hails from a musical family and her primary education is in music education. “I knew from a very young age that I wanted to be a teacher; my mother and my aunt and my grandmother were all music teachers,” she said.

She taught music for 12 years, including a five-year stint teaching band in southern California. In Mesa, her work included writing musicals that were absorbed into the curriculum. The integration was especially for students who exhibited learning difficulties.

That led her to community theater, specifically the Mesa-based East Valley Children’s Theater, which workshopped one of her musicals with its students.

“I absolutely fell in love with the process, as well as the group itself. EVCT was still fairly new, so I was asked to be on the board in 2000 and have been a part of it ever since,” McMahon said.

She went on to compose original music for seven of EVCT’s productions, and received six ariZoni nominations, with four of them translating to awards.

Many moons later, after serving on its board and also as an instructor in many variations, McMahon will volunteer for its 25th season this fall. It will be her last.

“I’m heading the committee for our 25th anniversary celebration this year, and that will be my final gift to EVCT before retiring from the board,” she said. Her teacher husband, Don, who handled its website for many years, will also step down from volunteering simultaneously.

McMahon is also involved in the Ahwatukee Foothills Concert Band, where she plays the flute and piccolo. Over the years, she held many responsible volunteer positions there as well. Add travel to that, and retired life is fulfilling Above: Teacher/musician Kathie McMahon is the author of a chapter book series for 6-9-year-olds. Right: Kathie and busy.McMahon’s “Mortimer and Me” series features an 8-year-old boy, Jimmy, and his friend, Mortimer the moose. (Courtesy of Kathie McMahon) Ever the teacher, McMahon finds equal contentment in nudging children, especially boys who don’t read, toward books. She meets many 10-12-year-olds without penchant for the written word. “My motivation was to write a series that was easy enough and entertaining enough to keep their interest and still be at their abilities, so it wasn’t going to be a big book,” she said. “Challenging enough that they can read it and still not feel like they were reading a lower-level book.” “Everything is supposed to be gender neutral these days, but when those boys get hooked on to my voice’s main character, the moose, that gives me a lot of satisfaction,” she said. Boys were her first audience, but increasingly, girls are also becoming readers. At bookstore events, she hands a reluctant reader her book and says “look at this and tell me what you think?” Sometimes it works, and the child wants the book. “That gives me a lot of satisfaction just seeing the kids get excited about my book,” McMahon said. “That’s more important to me than how much money I make or how many sales I make. It’s just getting it into the hands of the kids that make a difference.”

For more on McMahon’s book launch with Halloween-themed children’s activities on Oct. 30 at HD South, visit hdsouth.org. More on the

author at kathiemcmahon.com. ■