AUTHOR VISIT: Reading THE TERRIBLE HODAG to the ESNS Preschool in Minneapolis

Showing the picture of the Hodag on my Camp Bovey sweatshirt to the ESNS preschool.

My first trip to Camp Bovey, the ESNS camp in northern Wisconsin, was when I was four years old. Then it was called Camp Hodag and as we sat around the campfire at night, my father told stories of the Hodag—a creature with the head of an ox, feet of a bear, back of a dinosaur, and tail of an alligator. I remembered those stories and when I grew up and became a children’s book writer, I wrote some of them down.

Ole Swenson meets the Hodag.

Last Friday, I visited the preschool at ESNS in Minneapolis and read my book THE TERRIBLE HODAG to the three and four-year-olds. They were just as fascinated with the Hodag as I had been when I was four. One of the children had even gone to Camp Bovey with his family and was proudly wearing his Camp Bovey t-shirt with a picture of the Hodag on the front.

Camp Bovey.

My father, Lester Scheaffer, was the director of ESNS (East Side Neighborhood Services) for 18 years and founded Camp Bovey in 1949. I thank Margie, the preschool director at ESNS for inviting me to read to the children. Long ago, I too attended the ESNS nursery school, then housed at Northeast Neighborhood House.

THE TERRIBLE HODAG in Spanish, available on Amazon.

THE TERRIBLE HODAG has long been out of print in hardback (although you may be able to find it online as a used book, or in your library) but you can find a digital version of the book on Amazon in both English and Spanish.

MAKE A HODAG SCULPTURE WITH CLAY

Clay sculpture of a Hodag

What creature has the head of an ox, feet of a bear, back of a dinosaur, and tail of an alligator? The HODAG! You can read stories about the Hodag in my books The Terrible Hodag and The Terrible Hodag and the Animal Catchers. (The Terrible Hodag is also available on Kindle in Spanish as El Terrible Hodag.)

The Hodag is the mascot of Camp Bovey, the camp for children and families in northern Wisconsin operated by East Side Neighborhood Services in Minneapolis. 

At the recent Night Under the Stars celebration of Camp Bovey at ESNS, children had the chance to make their own Hodags with clay. 

You can enjoy doing this project too! Remember, that even though the Hodag might look scary, it is really a friendly creature who loves the forest.

 

THE TERRIBLE HODAG. Its Origins in Rhinelander, WI

As a child, I spent my summers at a small camp in northern Wisconsin, originally called Camp Hodag, now called Camp Bovey. In the evenings we sat around the campfire telling stories of a huge creature with the head of an ox, feet of a bear, back of a dinosaur and tail of an alligator--the terrible Hodag! When I grew up and became a children's book writer I wrote some of those stories down. One of them, The Terrible Hodag, is available as a Kindle book on Amazon. It is also available in Spanish, El Terrible Hodag.

The original Hodag stories were invented more than one hundred years ago in the logging camps of Rhinelander, Wisconsin. In an article written by Emily Bright for the Wisconsin Life blog in 2016, you can read how practical joker Gene Shepard created the Hodag and perpetuated the myth until he was finally debunked by an investigator from the Smithsonian Museum. She writes, "Rhinelander still has the hodag as its mascot for the city and the high school. Hodag statues line downtown like a cow parade with fangs. ....Thanks to Gene Shepard, Rhinelander is unique—and proud of it."

In the summer of 2006, I visited Rhinelander and took the photo below of the Hodag in front of the Chamber of Commerce greeting visitors as they drive into town.

 

Books in Spanish Now at StarWalk Kids Media

As of October 1, 2015, books in Spanish are now available in the eBook collection at StarWalk Kids Media. They are designed to support English Language Learners in acquiring academic vocabulary in both English and Spanish, and to enable both English- and Spanish-speaking children to learn the same, Standards-aligned content together. The eBooks are narrated by native language speakers for both language groups, and primarily cover informational subjects such as science, biography, poetry and historical fiction, focused on grades K–3.

I am happy to say that two of my books are in this collection, Mother and Baby Zoo Animals, Mama y bebe animales del zoologico and The Terrible Hodag, El Terrible Hodag.
Students can quickly and easily find the English-language version of a book after they’ve read it in Spanish, because the book information page for each bilingual book offers both languages simultaneously, with buttons that allow a student to “Read in English” or “Leer en español” with a single click.

All these books are available with a StarWalk Kids Media streaming eBook subscription. If you are not yet a subscriber and would like a free trial, click here to learn how you can try these books for your classroom or library.

THE TERRIBLE HODAG Now Available as a Kindle Book

My tall tale, The Terrible Hodag, originally published in 1989 by Harcourt Brace Jovanovich and long out of print, is now available again as an e-book published by StarWalk Kids.  The striking paintings by Lambert Davis that illustrate the book capture the mystery and drama of the story.

Every day, Ole Swenson and the other lumberjacks went into the forest to cut down trees.  They worked hard from sunup to sundown, but when night fell, all the men returned to the lumbercamp.  They did not want to meet the terrible Hodag, who had the head of an ox, the feet of a bear, the back of a dinosaur, and the tail of an alligator.  His eyes glowed like fire and he was forty feet tall.

This book is a retelling of the story told by my father that I heard around the campfire as a child at Camp Bovey in northern Wisconsin.  The story continues to bel told to campers at Camp Bovey today and the Hodag's image is still on their t-shirts, as it was when I was a camper.

You can get The Terrible Hodag for your Kindle at Amazon.