The Cedar Key Elementary School has been preparing for the Young Author's Conference. Each year, every student completes a story with illustrations and puts it into a hard jacket book. In the lower grades, they pick their topic. In the upper grades (3-5) they are given a topic. Katy wrote about Dogs in Space, which I will get to see tomorrow at the conference. Sarah was assigned Cedar Key history. She chose to write about Atsena Otie (said At-see-na Oh-tee), a small island off Cedar Key. It used to be the main island here, home of the Faber Mill pencil factory, two battles in the Seminole war, and the last stop on the Florida railroad. At one time, it was called Cedar Key because locals mistook juniper trees for cedar trees. They changed the name back to Atsena Otie after four years. It was home to about 50 households at its peak. In 1896, a major hurricane came through with a ten foot tidal surge, destroying all but a handful of homes and demolishing the mill. All inhabitants vacated to what is now known as Cedar Key! Sarah's story is historical fiction about a girl named Kirsten Cone who befriends a newcomer named Addie. She incorporated details about life on the island and the hurricane that destroyed it into the story. She really enjoyed doing the story (she is my writer, for sure!). Her favorite part, though, was what she chose for the illustrations. She borrowed costumes from the school, asked her friend to dress as Addie, and had me take pictures of them around the island enacting scenes from the book. They had a ball!
True friends, indeed, as the story says.
True friends, indeed, as the story says.
We borrowed Aunt Laura's garden for the scene where they dig and hoe "all day".
Walking the beach, "past fishermen bringing in oysters, green turtles and lots of fish!"
Yup, they harvested green turtles off of these islands.
The cover shot. "Kirsten" and "Addie" look at Atsena Otie in the distance.
