TRANSCRIPT

Candace Fleming: The Adventures of Candy and Spot

Hi. I'm Candace Fleming. I'm from the Chicago area and I've written lots of books — some for small readers, some for older readers. Some of those titles include Muncha! Muncha! Muncha!; Tippy-Tippy-Tippy, Hide!; The Fabled Fourth Graders of Aesop Elementary School; and my newest book, The Lincolns: A Scrapbook Look at Mary and Abraham Lincoln.

There were very early signs that I was going to be a writer, or at least a storyteller. When I was a child, before I could write… You remember those days when you had a pencil and the story would be in your head and it'd be much faster than what your pencil could do.

I would be a little frustrated with that and so I would just tell my stories. I told stories to people all the time. Unfortunately, I didn't tell them that I was making stories up, so I can remember clearly going to my kindergarten class and as a kindergartner, and telling my friends in kindergarten all about my three-legged cat, who I told them was named Spot.

I would have a series of stories and adventure stories that I actually had titles for. I called them The Adventures of Candy and Spot. I would entertain them almost daily with stories about our trips to the woods behind my house. I told them one time we met a tiger and my three-legged cat fought him off.

Another time I told them we had a bear in the woods and my three-legged cat fought him off. One time I told them there was a big snake that attacked us and my three-legged cat ate him. I can remember kids clearly, they would come to the house and the problem was, of course, there was no bear or tiger or snake in the woods behind my house. There was no woods behind my house and I didn't have a three-legged cat. I didn't have a cat.

I wasn't a real popular kindergartner because, it was interesting, you got a reputation for being a liar. Really, you were just a storyteller. That continued for years until somewhere around second or third grade, I realized with the help of my teachers, that if you put those stories down you had the pleasure of still sharing a story, but no one believed they were absolutely true.

I had a cleaner reputation after that, but I would always tell a good story. I'm not surprised that this is where I've ended up right now.