UTPB professor pens children's book

Jan. 1—University of Texas Permian Basin Associate Professor of Literacy Tara Wilson doesn't just teach her subject, she's taking action.

Wilson recently published her first book, a children's book called Randy Rattlesnake. It is illustrated by Nina Mkhoiani and published by Innovative Inc.

"I have always wanted to write a children's book. It's kind of been on my bucket list and so I finally chose the opportunity to start writing a children's book," Wilson said.

She went with Randy Rattlesnake because she wanted the book to be different — with a cute, friendly rattlesnake. It also has ties to West Texas and the oil and gas industry. The book talks about the industry in terms a second-grader and someone who doesn't know much about the industry can understand.

Randy also has his own Facebook page.

"I've learned a lot and there are people out in the industry that have helped me. ... With Randy Rattlesnake ... it talks about Randy, who is a landowner. A landman approaches him about drilling on his land. They go through that process in the book," Wilson said.

She plans to pen additional Randy Rattlesnake books. This one ends with a construction engineer coming to set up on Randy's property ready to start drilling.

"Book Two will pick up from there about the drilling process. I don't know how many books there's going to be. I do want it to be a series, but I have no clue because I don't know what all's involved. A children's book can only be so long you know, we don't want it to be too, too long. I hope I'm able to finish the whole process. In each book, my goal is to also have two to three jobs explained. In book one, it is explained what a landman does, construction engineer and a drilling engineer, so those three jobs are explained in Book One. I don't know which jobs will be explained in Book Two," Wilson said.

She added that she has gotten a lot of help from people and companies in the industry who have helped her understand how things work and explained them in a way that laypeople can understand.

Wilson said she hopes to have the next book out by March or April.

"It seems people liked the book because I was kind of worried about it, so we're going to go with No. 2," she said.

She noted that there are "tons" of other oil and gas jobs, but she wouldn't be able to include them in the book because there's only so much room.

"I'm going to keep it short and simple and ... explain the overall process and ... highlight some of the jobs in the oil and gas field. Randy Rattlesnake (is) going to be the only animal," Wilson said.

She named the landman Wayne Williams.

"He's a human. Everybody's a human except for Randy and his family," who are friendly rattlesnakes, she stressed.

The book is available from the publisher's website, Amazon, Barnes & Noble online and Walmart online.

She hopes to go to some local businesses and ask them if they would like to buy a few copies and sell it.

"I've had some schools ask me if I would come read it, so I'm going to after Christmas, so that's really exciting," Wilson said.

Wilson, who is from Houston, has had schools from that area who want her to come read her book, as well.

She said writing the book wasn't too hard because she had the idea already. What she is worried about is whether people are going to like her book, or have any problem with it. But she has realized that there are going to be critics out there.

"But writing it, I actually had a lot of fun because it was a learning process and working with an illustrator was fun and interesting," Wilson said.

She added that she has read a lot of children's books all her life and she has quite a few in her office and at home. Wilson uses children's books she has to teach classes. She also sets aside time to read the books aloud.

"I used to be a kindergarten teacher before becoming a college professor. So that's something I've always done, but I did look through some more with a different lens, looking at style and artwork. I've always read a lot of children's books. I still do. ... I did ... go back and look at some to get some ideas on it," Wilson said.