Thursday, May 2, 2024
A children’s author may not have been Pete Hartgraves' first career, but it has certainly become one he cherishes deeply.
Hartgraves, who moved to Granbury in 2021, just published his third children’s book “Gail the Tattle-Tale Snail” last summer — the first book in an estimated 16-book series.
"All my adult life I've been an educator, and I spent the last 25 years of my career as a school counselor,” Hartgraves said. “The last few years I've been thinking about doing books to help counselors, which can also help teachers, and one of the situations I was in was a teacher asked me to talk to her class about tattling. During the lesson on tattIing, I was struck by the idea of having a character named Gail, the tattletale snail.”
In the book, Gail the snail inadvertently becomes a tattletale in her eagerness to follow the rules and get her teacher’s attention. Unfortunately, this leads to her having trouble making friends and connecting with her classmates.
"Through that book, I'm able to teach kids the difference between tattling and reporting,” Hartgraves said. “Tattling is (about) things that are nonsense, and reporting is (about) things that need to be told to protect yourself or others, so I came up with the idea, wrote the book, and I got it published. Since then, I've got about (15 other) ideas to turn into books.”
Using the same characters in “Gail the Tattle-Tale Snail,” Hartgraves will publish 15 more children’s books with similar storylines and situations, like “Betsy the Bossy Bovine,” “Mrs. Grippo, the Very Smart Hippo,” “Roth the Sloth Needs to Contribute,” and “Nat the Bat is Asleep Again.”
Hartgraves will also use family members from his personal life to serve as characters in his books, like his daughter, Jennifer, his son, Brandon, and his wife, Sheri.
“My daughter's name is Jennifer, and she got Type 1 diabetes at a young age, so (her character is a giraffe),” he explained. “The tall giraffe gets weak on the playground and falls down, and the teacher knows what's going on because she's just been diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes. The teacher, of course, is a hippo, and she has Type 2 diabetes, so she has to come across and explain to the class what happened to Jinny, and what to look for whenever you see Jinny doing these things that may be something to be concerned about.”
He also stressed the importance of ensuring his stories are accurate, which is why he plans to talk to a doctor regarding diabetes for Jinny’s story — something he did previously for another children’s story about COVID-19.
Written in 2020 and published in February 2023, “I’ve Got COVID-19,” is an educational children’s book that discusses COVID-19 in a straightforward and easy-to-understand way.
In the story, Hartgrave’s character Rodney contracts COVID-19 and talks about what the illness is, what the symptoms are, and the current treatment options.
"All my information came from the Mayo Clinic website because my books are going to be accurate,” he said. “I'm not going to (publish) information for kids that's not true. That's one of my big things, and that's why I'm being so careful with diabetes. I want to make sure it's accurate.”
Hartgraves’ first novel — originally written in 1993 and published in February of last year — is called “ADVENTURES IN TIME: My Only Regret,” in which three young teens travel through time and witness historical events like the Revolutionary War.
Although only the first book is currently released, Hartgraves revealed he has plans for three more books, where the teens experience the Underground Railroad, the Alamo and the Titanic.
“My purpose is to give kids an idea of what was going on at the time and how the moods were in society,” he explained. “I want to make my books where you just can't put them down. I want to make history exciting for kids; that's the whole purpose of it."
Brandon, Hartgraves’ son, is also helping him write a novel — using an idea Brandon came up with in college for a screenplay.
“The professor was like, ‘You got to do something with this; this is good.’ I heard it, and I was just like, blown away, so for all these years, I've been saying, ‘Brandon, you got to do something.’” Hartgraves said. “After I got settled into Granbury,’ I thought, Well, I'll start it then.’ I'm using his initial idea, and he'll come in, he'll read it and he'll say, ‘You need to change this, you need to change that,’ so he's helping me right now. I revamp it to make it fit his storyline because it is. I want him to be a part of the book with me.”
Hartgraves said his goal for the next few years is to continue releasing more stories in the “Gail the Tattle-Tale Snail” universe and to eventually become a ghostwriter.
"I don't want to write my stories. I want to write their story and, in my opinion, that's what being a ghostwriter is all about,” he said. “I'd love to be able to start doing that. That'd be a lot of fun, helping people out with their stories.”
Hartgraves first began his career as a band director after getting a degree in music education from Texas Christian University in Fort Worth. According to a former press release, he completed his master’s degree in counseling and guidance from Sam Houston State University in Huntsville and became a school counselor.
After almost 30 years of serving in the Texas public schools, he is now retired and enjoys writing children’s stories, selling real estate, fishing and looking at old cars and trucks.
“I retired in 2017 and I started writing children's books,” he added. “Then I got into real estate, but I don't have time for real estate anymore because I'm always kind of slowing down on that end and kind of picking up on this end because this is what I love to do. It's not making me rich. But I do what I love to do — and that's what it's all about.”
Hartgraves’ published books, “Gail the Tattle-Tale Snail,” “I’ve Got COVID-19,” and “ADVENTURES IN TIME: My Only Regret,” can all be purchased on Amazon or Barnes & Noble.
