What began as a bedtime story for Minnesota author Kyle Rawleigh’s children has now blossomed into a three-book series called Chronicles of the Unicorn Kingdom, and Rawleigh made his third trip to Jennifer Paulson’s classroom at Woodland Elementary School with his latest book on Feb. 28, where he told the students that they served as his inspiration to keep writing.
“I was putting a lot of work into these books on top of doing a day job and being a dad,” he said. “I was kind of running out of steam and wondered if it was worth it to keep [writing books].”
However, his perspective changed after his second visit with the class last year, when he saw the students’ excitement and how they remembered all the story’s little details.
“You guys actually inspired me to keep going and keep writing books,” Rawleigh told the class to an enthusiastic response.
While he lives in Andover, Rawleigh began visiting Mrs. Paulson’s second grade class in Brooklyn Park last year because of his mother’s close friendship with Paulson, and he and the class made a strong connection during his two visits. Though the students are now third graders, the whole class gave up their recess time for the chance to come back to their former classroom and see Rawleigh again.
Rawleigh surprised the students with a signed copy of his newest book for each of them, which was released on Feb. 22. He answered all their questions and requested their suggestions for what should happen in the series’ final book, which is due for release this summer. The students were thrilled to pepper Rawleigh with their ideas, which he considered with care.
