L'ANSE -- It wasn't your average school day for L'Anse area students.
Author Johnathan Rand, who you may know from the American Chillers series, made a special appearance, talking to students about how his love of haunted stories started at an early age.
"Every night I would go to bed and I would get a ghost story and I'd pull the covers over my head and I would read with a flashlight and get all freaked out and have to put it back down," says Rand.
But the point he really wanted to drive home was the importance of reading in any career.
"Right now there's so much competition for their minds from video games and computers. I think there needs to be a balance, and the aspect of reading and writing is something that's kind of getting lost these days," Rand adds.
Rand says the key to getting kids turning pages is to change the way they view reading. He says reading isn't something you do, it's a place that you go.
After his presentations, Rand held writing workshops for the kids. He says the key to being a good author isn't in the writing, it's in rewriting and revising.
"I don't think he could have said anything more powerful for the children to hear and for us teachers. We keep telling them to revise, revise, revise, you're not done yet," says L'Anse fifth grade teacher, Jane Van Buren.
Fans of the American Chillers books can look forward to two new additions to the series: Nevada Nightmare Novel and the Idaho Ice Beast.
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