joliet_herald

White Oak Principal Jim Carter has been reading the book "Me and Caleb" to his grade school students for the
better part of 20 years now, carefully turning the book's yellowing pages to keep his out-of-print copy intact.
He tried to get additional copies of the book on the Internet, but the few copies left were going for upward of
$600 each.

Last fall, though, a New England publishing company decided to reissue the book. The owner of Hester
Publishing, Jim Hester, put out "Me and Caleb" and its sequel "Me and Caleb Again." He was surprised at the
number of orders that came in from a small town in Illinois -- Morris.

All the years of Carter reading the books to Morris students had
put the books at the top of the wish list of several parents and
teachers. Hester e-mailed Carter and discovered the reason why
the Caleb books are so popular in his hometown.

"They're just great books," Carter said. "I haven't found better
books that will instill the love of reading in kids."

Carter's wife even made him a giant man-being-eaten-by-a-snake
costume that he wears when reading one of the book's chapters,
"An Eel for Gramps." That chapter, along with one other,
"Roughing It," usually brings rounds of laughter from Carter's
students.

"I've had kids with tears in their eyes from laughing so hard at
those two stories," Carter said.

Carter first came across the book a couple of decades ago when
he was a fourth-grade teacher. The book contained a collection of
old-fashioned tales set in rural Missouri of kids having adventures
just being kids, he said. He found his students loved the stories
and looked forward to when their teacher would read them.

Reading is best taught in several ways, Carter said. One is for the
child to read to himself. Another is for the child to read aloud, and
yet another is for an adult or older child to read out loud to the
child. An adult sharing his or her love of reading helps pass along
that love to the child, he said.

It's important to set that example, he said.

As principal, Carter still manages to make the time to steal into a

couple of third- and fifth-grade classes each year to read from "Me and Caleb." The kids love not only the
stories, but also that their principal is the one reading to them.

"I like it," said Sami Obrochta, a fifth-grader in Kathy Hanouw's class. "He uses a lot of expressions, and he
makes it exciting. He chooses books that you normally wouldn't pick out. 'Me and Caleb' was a fun book."

"I've seen the kids just in stitches from Mr. Carter's storytelling," said Gloria Varness, a third-grade teacher at
White Oak. "I'm always on the lookout for a book that will hold their attention, and I know that 'Me and Caleb'
will do just that."

Hester said his children had similar reactions to reading the books. His 10-year-old daughter initially picked up
an old copy of "Me and Caleb" at a school book sale for a dollar.

"When she read it, she told me, 'This is the funniest book I have ever read,'" Hester said.

His other children felt the same way, and Hester knew he was on to something.

"My kids aren't atypical," he said. "I knew there was something there."

Hester located the author of the book, Franklyn E. Meyer -- a retired schoolteacher, coach and school bus
driver -- and told him he wanted to get his books back in print. Meyer was surprised, Hester said, but delighted
that a new generation of children might be able to read the books.

The first "Caleb" book was issued in 1962 and won the Charles W. Follett Award for best children's literature.
The second book was released in 1969.

The author has even recently revised an old manuscript for a third "Caleb" book, which Hester plans on issuing
this summer.

"These books are wholesome, charming, extremely well-written, and just plain fun to read," said Hester's wife,
Darlene.

More information about the books can be found at www.hesterpublishing.com. They sell for $16.95 at the site.