Elizabeth Kerlikowske
Before the Rain

excerpt from SNAKE STEP

Eleanor had spent summers since she was five at her grandparent’s cottage on Crystal Lake. Now that she was ten, she knew all the special places in the surrounding woods and had even made some of the paths to them herself: the one to the crabapple tree or to the bird’s nest stump surrounded by brambleberries. And there were spooky places, but just two: the weeds, where they threw crayfish hulls and apple cores and sometimes a dead fish, and the snake step.

Fifty-two cement steps led from the cottage down to the beach. Eleanor knew everyone by heart. They started off flat and narrow. As they went further down hill, they grew bigger and the angle grew steeper until at the bottom there were three huge sloping steps. One of them was split and hollow in the center and that was the snake step. All of the cousins knew it because on the Fourth of July, Bibi had stepped on the snake while she ran to the beach at dusk to do sparklers. She had been too surprised to cry.

The snake wasn’t out much in the hot sun, so during the day walking down to the beach was fairly safe. But in the evenings, Eleanor was always extra careful. The only time the snake step interfered with her life was when she had to clip the tall grass that grew around and in-between the steps. Over the whole summer, it was the only job her grandparents wanted her to do. She could hardly refuse them.
72 Pages
$15
isbn 1-882983-90-4

These stories and poems have evolved over fifteen years of workshops and readings to children at elementary schools in Colorado and Michigan. People often ask where my work can be found. Now I can answer that question! In my writing workshops, I tell the children to write about what they know and what they love. I’ve followed my own advice. This is a world of bugs and animals, trees and weather, and children growing up under their influence. It's my hope that you will recognize yourself or people you know in one of these stories.

You’ll find that stories at the beginning of the book are for younger readers, but all of them are stories that families can enjoy and that raise questions worthy of further discussion. They can be springboards for conversations about the environment (”The Quarry”) and racism (”Grannysaurus Rex”). Some explore language itself (”Peter and the Ants”). I don't write for children; I want to write of them.