CHAMPAIGN — A father’s 100th book and his son’s first feature basketball, history, time-travel and more, and both authors should be familiar faces around Champaign County.
Doug Peterson writes for University of Illinois publications, alongside his 100 published books including novels, comic books and children’s books — 40 of which were for the VeggieTales series.
Jason Peterson has been teaching in the area for years, and is now assistant principal at Pleasant Acres Elementary in Rantoul.
While Doug is the author, the father-son duo’s new middle-age book “The Sabotage of ’76” was initially Jason’s brain child.
As a social studies teacher, he had found himself often referencing sports teams in his lessons, whether their names and mascots had a historic tie — like the 49ers — or the teams were just located in cities relevant to the topic at hand.
Originally, he planned out a nonfiction book explaining the history behind the names of all 30 NBA teams, highlighting iconic players from basketball history.
“I wrote 10 complete chapters. I was midway through my 11th chapter and I was just wondering if I think kids are reading less nonfiction these days,” Jason said.
Hoping to draw in younger readers and get them actually wanting to consume historical information, Jason switched tracks to transform the concept into a chapter book.
With his own preference typically being nonfiction, he pulled his dad into the project.
“He’s got a lot of expertise in the field, so getting to work with him on it just benefited me to learn from his craft,” Jason said.
That, and he’s plenty busy with school, so having a co-author made completing the book in a timely fashion possible.
Doug is pretty busy with his own writing and freelance work, he said, so it helped on his end, too.
The two men took turns writing chapters, catching up with each other every time they had a few done to make sure they were on the same page regarding where the story felt like it was headed.
“I’m honored that he wanted to do it with me,” Doug said, though he suspected his son could’ve handled it all on his own.
“The Sabotage of ’76” follows two basketball-loving kids who time travel with a fictional version of the real inventor of basketball, Dr. James Naismith.
On their journey, they not only have to save the Declaration of Independence in 1776, but protect the revolution of the sport led by Julius Erving — that’s “Dr. J” — in 1976.
“We do try to stick to reality when they’re interacting with history and try to bring in as much as we can, but obviously, they meet Ben Franklin in 1776 and bring him to 1976,” Doug said.
He took inspiration from some of his own favorite historical fiction novels, though, in putting notes in the end of the book explaining the real facts of the relevant stories without a fictionalized lens.
Doug also said that his policy is to avoid framing anyone from history as a villain, unless they’re truly known to have done bad things in real life.
Beyond that, it’s just an effort to balance historical events with a fun narrative to draw readers in.
Jason said that he hopes to see the books in school libraries and even in classrooms, but more than that, he hopes to see them in kids’ hands.
While there are kids who love reading and will always do it, and kids who don’t and won’t, he said he’s battling for the kids in the middle: the ones who think reading is all right, but may be equally distracted by screens.
“Can we get this book in the hands of some of those kids, and could we potentially get them to at least foster some kind of reading habit, if they liked our book?” Jason said. “That would be the hope.”
The book will be released Tuesday.
The Petersons are already working on related educational experiences for Rantoul schools, and would be interested in taking them to other local schools if asked.
Source: www.news-gazette.com
