You Too Can Be a Published Author

Part of our reading curriculum is a series of little books called phonics readers that reinforce the sounds that we're working on that week. For example, here's this week's first reader:

Page 1: Tam Cat
Page 2: mat
Page 3: Tam Cat sat.
Page 4: Tam Cat sat, sat, sat.

The humor, to me, is that there's an author listed for the book: a Jason Weeks. Good for him! Published work is published work, after all, and I'm guessing the readership of Tam Cat is wider than that of most works.

Looking through the readers, though, I was astounded to find some truly famous authors who also wrote for the Houghton-Mifflin phonics series! For example, here's some early Steven King working with the short /i/ sound--you can see the inspiration for "Pet Cemetary" within:

Page 1: Kid
Page 2: Dead Kid
Page 3: Live, kid, live!
Page 4: Kill, kid, kill.

Then there's Dan Brown's reader for short /o/ and /i/:

Page 1: Who is his mom?
Page 2: God's cop says stop, stop!
Page 3: Stop, blonde God cop! Stop, stop!
Page 4: Bop the God Cop with this whip.

Astoundingly, James Frey did the long i sound:

Page 1: My, my! I am high, high, high!
Page 2: High, high, high am I!
Page 3: It is a lie. Now I will sigh.
Page 4: I told a big fat lie, and now I will cry.

And then there was this from Ernest Hemmingway, focused on -nk endings:

Page 1: Drink, drink, drink.
Page 2: Drink, drink, drink.
Page 3: Drink! Drink drink. Drink?
Page 4: Drink? I drank. Drunk.

Finally some early Mitch Albom, using the /ch/, /sh/, /wh/, and /th/ digraphs:

Page 1: My chum is dead. Write, write, write.
Page 2: She is dead. They are dead. Write, write, write.
Page 3: What if I should chat with them? Write, write, write.
Page 4: Cash the check. Cash, check, cash! Ca-ching.