Hiccups
R. A. Casper
language
(, June 24, 2011)
A children's book written by an 11 year old!This began as a project for an English class when I was a 5th grade student in 1975-1976. The project was to create a real book over the course of one school semester. Some students agreed to be writers, some illustrators, some as book binders. I chose to be a writer because I enjoyed books like the Encyclopedia Brown series and the Mad Scientist's Club, and wanted to create a story like that. My main character's name is Henry Hiccups - a boy who is an inventor like the members of the Mad Scientist's Club, and helps to solve crimes like Encyclopedia Brown.I was assigned an illustrator who was a fellow student named Randy. He created a drawing of Henry and Harry's room for me. Henry was neat and his brother Harry was messy. Randy drew a bedroom with a dark black line running down the middle. I said - NO - it's not like that, there's no actual line there, it just LOOKS like there's a line because Harry is so messy and Henry only cleans his half of the room! Well, Randy didn't get what I was imagining, so I decided to do all the illustrations myself. The illustrations are hand-drawn using colored pens. Three drafts of the story were written out by hand with pen and paper. Then it was typed onto parchment typing paper using a manual typewriter (this was before word processors).Because I decided to do my own illustrations, I was running out of time and felt the pressure to finish the story by the end of the class. So I wasn't able to go into as much detail in the story as I'd like later in the book (especially after the part where Henry is escaping from the kidnappers). I was also too late to have a classmate do my book binding before the deadline, so my mother helped by improvising a book cover using cardboard, wallpaper, cloth, glue and a shoelace to tie the pages together.I don't recall my exact grade for this project, but my teacher was happy with it. She gave me a great compliment by saying at one point she stopped "reading to grade" and began to wonder what would happen next in the story.The Characters:Henry Hiccups - A boy genius who carries a knapsack full of tools and parts, that he uses to create inventions to solve everyday problems. Henry mercilessly teases his brother Harry but also strongly values his companionship.Harry Hiccups (aka "Stupie") - Although Harry resents his brother's teasing, he secretly admires Henry, and is quick to help on his adventures. Harry is a Ham Radio enthusiast and also enjoys the TV Show "Happy Days".Mr. and Mrs. Hiccups - The boys' parents share a family breakfast together every day, and are very concerned about the safety of their two sons.The Kidnappers - Two gruff men that are on the run, staying one step ahead of the police. They take any opportunity to do what they do best, which is capture children and hold them for ransom.For the last 35 years, there has been only ONE published copy of this book. Now, it has been faithfully replicated as a Kindle book, and is available for you to download. The text was typed exactly as it was in the original book. Spelling errors were corrected, but otherwise the text is exactly like the original. When I typed this I was really tempted to correct grammar and add detail to some parts of the story, but instead decided to retain the authentic 11-year old writer's style.Thank you for reading my story.R.A. Casper
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