Breaking all the rules

Author kick-starts career by using animals and rhymes to connect with children

It was Karma Wilson's last-ditch effort to become a children's book author.

She had written children's books for three years and submitted them to publishers with no luck.

Karma had followed the publishers' children's book guidelines.

Don't be the gazillionth imitator of Dr. Seuss.

Do straight prose, not rhymes.

Human characters, not talking animals.

Karma wanted to write for children. It has been a longtime ambition for the heavy reader who had been working in day care.

But many children's books bored her. Even worse, they bored her own children.

"I wanted to write books that kids would like to hear, and adults wouldn't shoot themselves if they had to read it more than once," Karma said.

So she finally wrote a children's book the way she wanted to - and sent it to her agent.

It had talking animals. It rhymed.

It had furry critters warming up and partying in a cave occupied by an oblivious hibernating bear.

Her agent sent it to one publisher, who liked it but didn't think it would be an award-winning book. That publisher really wanted books that would win awards.

Then her agent asked another publisher's manuscript reader - as a personal favor - to read the book. He did so to kill time on a train, and liked it.

So in 2002, Karma's first book - "Bear Snores On" - was published.

By the way, it has won 17 children's book awards.

. . .

Actually, Karma, 36, of Fortine, now has nearly 30 children's books published, about to be released or on contract.

Those books also have won numerous awards.

Most feature talking animals.

Karma thinks talking animals are great storybook characters. They're universal surrogates for children of all ethnicities and from all walks of life. Any youth reading a talking animal book can easily put himself or herself into a bear's or mouse's shoes.

Most of her books rhyme.

Rhyming is second nature to Karma when she writes. In fact, she finds prose more difficult to fit into the tight word counts and lean-and-spare word flows used in children's books.

Plus prose in children's books can be easily forgettable.

Karma noted most people can't remember one prose story from their early childhoods; but everyone remembers Mother Goose.

Plus rhymes and repetitions have rhythms that small children really get into as readers and listeners, she believes.

This style creates choruses that children can anticipate and participate in by reciting when they pop up; reading is supposed to be fun.

For example in "The Bear Snores on," the phrase "but the bear snores on" follows each time the party in his cave gets bigger and rowdier.

Most of Karma's books avoid obvious moralizing. She stresses a good story with the good-for-you messages subtly woven in.

Also, most pack two layers of humor - one for chlldren and one for adults.

Almost all tallied overall ratings of five stars - the best - or four stars by readers reviewing them for Amazon.com.

However, in one Amazon.com posting, a pediatrics nurse vehemently slammed Karma's otherwise-four-star "Never Ever Shout In A Zoo" for repeating what she believed was a child-traumatizing catch "Don't say I didn't warn you."

Karma's ideas come in many ways from many places - with her carpenter husband Scott, 36, being a major source.

They frequently bounce ideas off each other until something clicks.

There's "Whopper Cake" about a grandpa mixing a monster chocolate cake in the bed of his pickup.

"Frog In A Bog" has a bug-swallowing amphibian showing how to count up to five and down again.

A mouse moves into a Nativity scene, finds "The Twilight Zone," and learns a lesson about Christmas in "Mortimer's Christmas Manger."

"Moose Tracks" takes the grade K-2 demographic into a mystery with a twist ending out of Agatha Christie.

Karma's favorite is coming out soon - "How To Bake An American Pie" - a patriotic piece about being American inspired by the atmosphere after the topple of Saddam Hussein.

. . .

One reason that the Wilsons - with their three children Michael, 14, David, 12, and Chrissy, 10 - moved to Fortine is mixed martial arts.

Scott and Karma married in Astoria, Ore., and later spent several years in Idaho, which is where Karma wrote "Bear Snores On."

The ended up in Grangeville, Idaho, which is about the size of Columbia Falls.

The Wilson family likes living in small Rocky Mountain towns, but Grangeville just didn't quite click.

One reason is that the Wilsons homeschool their children.

And they think homeschooling should include physical education. The Wilsons got hooked on martial-arts classes -especially the Southeast Asian Muay Thai style - for an all-purpose form of phys-ed, and made it a family affair.

Grangeville did not offer what the Wilsons were looking in a good martial-arts program. They looked around the Northern Rockies for a semi-rural place that had the extra benefits they wanted, including a good mixed-martial-arts program. As the term says, mixed martial arts is a combination of numerous fighting styles that has blossomed in popularity in the United States.

The Wilsons found the Ultimate Submission Academy in Creston, which teaches mixed-martial-arts training. Originally looking in Kalispell, they found the home they wanted in Fortine, and moved there in June 2006.

The family drives to Creston three or four evenings a week to learn and practice mixed martial arts.

Mom spars with the boys and her husband. Chrissy reads during the sessions, but might take on the sport when she's older. The menfolk grapple and spar with other male Ultimate Submission Academy students.

The family frequently watches matches on television together.

They enjoy the strategy, the tactics, the mental chess games that the fighters play with each other.

"I'm a geek about it," said Karma, who loves to discuss and argue matches with other fans on Internet message boards.

. . .

Karma has written six books about the bear featured in "Bear Snores On."

That one children's-book bear "… Wants More," "… Feels Sick," has a "… New Friend," "… Stays Up," and "…Stays Up For Christmas."

Karma has a tiny tattoo of a bear's paw on the web of her left hand. Scott has a similar tiny bear paw tattooed between his thumb and forefinger.

The Wilsons really like bears.

"They're tasty," Scott said.

A bear's head and front legs jut out from one wall of their living room. A bearskin hangs on another wall. Scott had shot both.

He likes to hunt. So does she, though Karma prefers using a camera.

"They're beautiful creatures, " Karma said.

Scott added: "We love them. They're awesome animals. We respect them. … They can go from cuddly, cute Winnie The Poohs to majestic predators."

Karma sees and enjoys the irony in a children's author - who made her mark with a bear book - living among bearskins and eating bear meat.

She compared it to a 4-H youth raising a cow or sheep to sell at a fair - falling in love with the animals, but also liking to eat beef and mutton.

"Children's books authors write about cows all the time," Karma said, "and I guarantee you - they're not all vegetarians."