By Lee Reinsch
Correspondent
DE PERE – Although she’s been called Cindy Lou Who in jest, Cindy Schumerth is not the little girl from Dr. Seuss’s microscopic city of Whoville.
However, Schumerth may well have channeled Horton, the star of “Horton Hears a Who!”
Horton is the elephant in the Jungle of Nool who hears a voice on a dust speck and discovers a tiny universe.
Schumerth’s own tiny voice told her she’d find her universe on the tip of a pen.
“It’s pretty exciting writing for Dr. Seuss,” Schumerth said.
“I Am Horton” is an introduction to “Horton Hears a Who!” for younger children, those too young for some of the larger concepts of Seuss’s 1954 original.
“‘I Am Horton’ describes how everything changed in the Jungle of Nool because Horton the elephant heard – and saved – the Whos,” Schumerth said. “It’s really a book about kindness.”
It’s a board book, illustrated by Seuss illustrators and written by Schumerth in the familiar Seussian rhyme scheme that has made them so much fun to read aloud for more than 60 years.
This isn’t her first book, nor is it her first book sold to a publisher.
Her first book, written two years ago for a kids’ STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) series, is about how popcorn pops.
“Let’s Pop, Pop, Popcorn!” is slated for release in March 2021 by Sleeping Bear Press, of Ann Arbor, Michigan.
“I am Horton” was on a much shorter turnaround schedule.
Schumerth said she submitted her manuscript last fall and within a few days learned it had been accepted.
Thus her second book will come out six months before her first.
Schumerth worked for 42 years in the prison system, and has a background in dental hygiene.
She started writing more than two decades ago because she felt an inner tug.
“I thought I had a story to tell,” she said.
After she retired, she figured she’d start with children’s books and found herself frequently hunting through the kids’ section of the local library.
That’s where a librarian told her about a group of children’s book writers in town.
“We had a critique group that met for years,” she said.
Schumerth also found some other groups helpful, including Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators and an informal offshoot of it that meets in Madison.
She said those groups helped her increase her output.
But it turns out, it’s not that easy to try to sell your work.
“You have to find your own editors, research them, make sure they’re accepting queries and submissions, and that takes a lot of time,” she said. “I was never very good at that.”
Schumerth found herself an agent who sold the popcorn book. She sold “I am Horton” on her own.
She’ll be able to crack the spine and dogear the pages of that book in just a few weeks.
And kids everywhere will hear the sound of a universe between the covers.