Terrie Stadler, author of the children’s book Who’s Knocking at My Door? A Country Pond Tale (Outskirts Press; 2013), was featured on the most recent episode of America Tonight’s “Author’s Corner,” where she was interviewed by Kate Delaney.
This book was inspired by Terrie’s personal experience when an unsuspecting visitor knocked on her door. Based on this experience, she decided to write a story about this most unusual experience when Terrie and her daughter were in the kitchen that day when suddenly they heard a loud bang on the door coming from the living room. Hearing the loud knock on the door, they decided to take a look, and to their surprise, they saw an unsuspecting visitor. A turtle was at their doorstep, asking for a bite to eat.
Knowing Terrie and what led her to write her book
“Well, for a long time, I have thought about writing a children’s book,” she said. Terrie took a correspondence course in the 1980s, but she never finished it since she was always working. She eventually ended up working for electronics, worked her way up, and was eventually doing CAD (Computer Aided Design Software). “It felt great,” she said when she was working with them.
“Did you ever think that you could do that kind of work?” Kate asked.
“No, I never did,” she answered. Terrie was never into electronics; in fact, she explained that it was her husband who was into electronics, but she had got the job already, so why not work it through the end, she thought. Terrie’s work was putting things together in electronics manufacturing, and much later, she started up in a photo lab, making films that are printed to construct these circuit boards. She worked her way up and eventually ended up in CAD, where she created production designs and had to learn a variety of software.
“I mean there was a whole lot through that job,” Terrie said as she had worked closely with engineers and learned a lot of things from them.
“Can you tell us about your book, what is the story all about?” Kate asked.
“I had retired and moved to West Palm Beach over to Fort Myers to be closer to my daughter and her family, and I was thinking about writing a book. And then one day this incident occurred, and I thought that’s what I’m gonna write my book about,” Terrie explained.
“I was just sitting in the kitchen, and we heard this kinda loud banging coming from the living room, and none of us would come to the living room, me nor my daughter, and then it kept going. So we decided to shoo it out and see what it was.”
To their surprise, it was a turtle who was looking for food. “He was knocking at the door like he was gonna come in or something. It’s kinda comical,” she exclaimed
After that incident, Terrie’s daughter and she started putting it together. Her daughter created all of the artistic drawings and signs and then self-published them, and that’s how she got started writing her book, Who’s Knocking At My Door?.
Since this is a children’s book, “…what do you want the kids to know?” Kate asked.
“I want the kids to know that animals are a lot more than we think they are. They have a conscience too, and sometimes they do want to contact us without us even knowing, but if they don’t, they just ignore us. It teaches us the child to communicate with these animals because I think that’s what they want in some cases,” Terrie answered.
She also expressed how she enjoyed writing her book, and she wished to deliver to children that communicating with nature and animals is important.
Why read “Who’s Knocking at My Door?”?
“From reading it, children will learn the love of nature and the awareness of the simple but extraordinary things that can happen in your own front yard. It shows a child the love and balance between nature and people.”
If you want to learn about nature with beautiful illustrations, Terrie Stadler’s book Who’s Knocking at My Door? A Country Pond Taleis a must-read for children’s early education. It highlights why children as young as 4-7 years old should commune with nature since it helps them socialize, learn more, and have a higher emotional quotient. Get your copy from Amazon today.