What do you do when a young child calls 911 and hangs up? Then calls again and hangs up again? Then does it yet a third time? The answer is: write a book if you’re Suzi Muhsman. Suzi explains that the idea for her Nebraska Growing Readers (NGR) book (an initiative of Nebraska Children and Families Foundation), Calling 911, came from an evening where her niece did just that.
Suzi works as a 911 dispatcher for Colfax County Sheriff’s Department and says that usually she would send a patrol car to check out the address just in case. But because she knew the source of the call, she was quickly able to find out that her niece had just gotten hold of Mom’s phone.
So when Suzi heard of NGR’s Writers Workshop being offered in the area, she saw it as an opportunity to help the community by writing a children’s book about what happens when you call 911 and when to do so. As she put it, “people call 911 but don’t know the voice behind the phone, so it was kind of fun to show, hey, this is what goes on behind the scenes.”
But the workshop was an opportunity for more than that. Suzi asked her 13-year-old daughter Kendra if she would like to attend to make it a “fun mother-daughter thing.” The two then not only attended the workshop, but produced three books between them: the already mentioned 911 book and Let’s Meet Deputy Brown Bear by Suzi and County Sheriffs and Deputies by Kendra.
You’ll notice the civil service focus of all the books, and that’s no accident. Suzi’s grandfather was the sheriff for Butler County and her grandmother was a 911 dispatcher for Colfax County. Suzi, in addition to walking in her grandmother’s footsteps, is a charge nurse for St. Joseph’s Court in David City and runs a home healthcare business. Kendra, who has aspirations to be a deputy when she’s old enough, takes after her great-grandfather and has done ride-alongs with local Sheriff Shawn Messerlie to distribute food to local families in need, participates in the Trunk or Treat event where car trunks are decorated for Halloween and candy is handed out to children, and often dresses as Deputy Brown Bear, a character created by Sheriff Messerlie to introduce children to and make them more comfortable with law enforcement officials.
The focus on local civil servants was important to both Suzi and Kendra. “We really wanted to include our community in these first books,” she said, explaining their aim to show the local audience some of the things they might not know about the work local officials do but also to make officers more approachable. That’s why you’ll see Sheriff Messerlie pose for donut pictures and photos of him filling a stranded motorist’s car with gas in Kendra’s text. Kendra said, “I love the pictures!” She asked him to pose for each of her planned pictures and he did. As Suzi put it, “he went above and beyond to help.” Suzi’s Deputy Brown Bear book also features deputies reading to classrooms of young children as a life-sized Deputy Brown Bear adds to the action
Perhaps that’s why the books have had a significant impact on the local community. At a recent book signing, 30 people came to get copies of the book autographed, to ask questions of Colfax County Police, and to see Deputy Brown Bear (not Kendra this time). In the audience were Kendra’s kindergarten teacher and Suzi’s second-grade teacher. More surprising, Suzi said, was the attention they got outside the official events. “We were just walking around the park the other day and a lady stopped us,” Suzi said. “She told us, ‘Hey, I love your books.’” Even in the making of the books, they drew the public eye. They took a road trip to various locations and Kendra dressed as Deputy Brown Bear to pose for photos. As soon as Kendra put on the costume children and parents began to gather and ask questions.
Although the project was local, it has drawn the attention of neighboring towns. “We actually had people from neighboring communities come to the book launch. They loved what we did,” Suzi said. Those visitors took the books back to their own communities and have asked Suzi and Kendra to speak at their library this summer and possibly at community schools in the fall.
The success of the books has led the mother-daughter duo to plan for new books. Kendra would like to write one on the day in the life of a police officer while Suzi is thinking of a book on working in a nursing home that will let kids know it’s fun to visit grandma and grandpa there. Whatever they decide, it is clear their focus will be on community and the service that makes it better.
The community impact Suzi and Kendra have had through their books is exactly what NGR aims for in creating Nebraska-related content written by local authors. Suzi said that the books exceeded her expectations and that she was so proud of her daughter’s involvement in and completion of a book. She thinks getting schools and local children involved in NGR’s project is a great way to create a community of literacy. “I’m so proud of how these books are all about community,” she said. It is this investment at the local level that builds lasting literacy partnerships and provides content that connects to the children and families of those communities.
