The Story of Fred Atkins— How a “Baldheaded Old Grandpa” Came to Write a Children’s Book

Fred Atkins is a retired small-business owner living in Cary, North Carolina. He and his wife, Lynda, were living a quiet, peaceful well-deserved retired life until one day, at his invitation, his daughter, son-in-law, and two grandchildren came to live with them! During their seven month stay, Fred came to love the challenge and happy chaos that comes with a pair of toddlers present in his home 24/7. He especially grew to love sitting down with the little ones and reading them their favorite books and stories.

After awhile, Fred decided that he’d like to find a book that would be his favorite book to read to the kids. He wasn’t sure of exactly what he had in mind, but he knew he wanted it to be about something that was near and dear to him. After much fruitless searching and complaining, his daughter sarcastically told him, “Well, Dad, why don’t you write your own book?!”

Well, Fred is not a writer and didn’t do well in English composition classes, but he decided, “Why not? I’ll give it a try.” The first thing he did was to think about some of the kids’ favorite books, the real long-standing classics, such as, “The Little Engine That Could,” “The Three Little Pigs,” and “Green Eggs and Ham.” He realized that all those classic books have a message. And all their messages are aimed at building in a child certain attitudes or mind-sets that will become their core values later in life. For example, the book “The Little Engine That Could;” that book was copyrighted in 1930, it’s been around a LONG time! The reason it has endured for so long is that it carries a timeless and very important message to children—that is, if you work hard, if you believe in yourself, if you try your best, if you have a goal, you can do anything. And then you’ve got, “I do not like green eggs and ham—I do not like them Sam-I-am.” That silly little rhyming book also teaches children something very important: Keep an open mind, don’t be afraid to try new things, don’t judge things just by the way they look.

And then Fred realized that he knew of no books that teach our children one of the most important messages of all—that they live in the most wonderful place, they live in the Greatest Country on earth. As hard as he looked, he could find no books that teach children about their rights and freedoms and responsibilities as Americans. There are none that teach kids to LOVE AMERICA. And that’s when the idea hit him—write a children’s book about America! Tell children why their country is so unique and why they should love it and protect it and defend it—why it is, truly, the GREATEST COUNTRY. Fill the book with simple rhymes that are fun to read and with classic American pictures that are fun to look at and talk about. Make the book bright and colorful and inexpensive, and the result will be children learning about their country from the people nearest and dearest to them—their parents and grandparents.

It took him a year, but he came up with a flashy little book that children love to listen to and adults love to read. “I Live in the Greatest Country” helps parents and grandparents do what our schools are no longer doing--teach our children what it means to live in the United States and encourage them to be proud to be Americans.

Fred decided to eschew the traditional book publishing business model, which takes both control and profit away from the author, and print and market the book himself. He has started a website (www.patriotkidsUSA.com), which will be his primary method of marketing the book, and is pursuing other methods of selling on the internet.

It’s been a fun and rewarding experience for this “bald-headed old grandpa,” as he calls himself. And it is now becoming a learning experience as he is forging ahead into that strange new land called, “The Internet.”