The books go marching one by one

Published 9:00 pm Monday, April 16, 2007

D reams get put on hold in life.

In Jon Browder’s case, his was tossed in a drawer and forgotten for 25 years.

It all started at the back door of a house in Ferndale. Browder was living there, between jobs, stewing for something to do.

A nest of red ants swarming around the back stoop caught his attention. He sat down and wrote and sketched. A story poured out of his pencil.

“It just came out of my cranium,” he said.

It was a story for children. In rhyming verse, Browder compared the life of ants to the world of humans. It felt good, he remembered, to create something for himself.

Lots of people dream of writing a book. But Browder knows a thing or two about drawing and writing. His varied career included jobs in technical illustration, commercial photography and cinematography.

But life and all its obligations got in the way of that book going any further. He threw it in a cabinet drawer and didn’t think about it, didn’t ever mention it.

It might have stayed there but his wife, Sharon, found out. This is good, she told him after finding it, really good. You should have this published, she urged him. Soon, his grandkids got in on the arm-twisting.

Finally, finally after years of pressure from family, two decades after the story popped into his brain, Browder pulled the manuscript out of its drawer, dusted it off and finished it. He fine-tuned the language and perfected the illustrations.

The result is “Big Red Ants Don’t Wear Pants,” a charming, colorful children’s book published in November. The $10 book is aimed at preschoolers and young readers.

Browder, now 69 and living in Everett, opted for a publishing company that uses print on-demand technology, which he thought would be quicker and easier than courting a traditional publishing house.

He paid a flat fee for his book to be published, and he gets a royalty check. His book can be purchased at www.trafford.com and by ordering from traditional book retailers.

Browder’s story doesn’t have the marketing muscle of a traditional publishing house, but he has sold several hundred copies. Apparently, kids like the book.

He read the book at a Christmas event at the Camano Senior and Community Center to a group of children. After the event, the center had a steady flow of telephone calls from parents and grandparents asking to buy the book, according to the center’s former director.

Browder said he doesn’t expect to get rich as a children’s book author. He enjoys the looks on the kids’ faces, he said. And the experience has been fun.

He is retired now and has the time to work on his own projects. He has another book in the works about a little girl named Mary Elizabeth who just turned 3.

“I spent years creating for someone else,” he said. “This is for me.”

Reporter Debra Smith: 425-339-3197 or dsmith@heraldnet.com.