OUR NEIGHBORS: School nurse inks new Colony book for kids

WASILLA — Inspired by her own young daughter, school nurse Heather Cooper Lehe has written a new book for kids about Colony Kids.

“I love the history of the Valley,” she said. “And there wasn’t anything about our history for this age group.”

Her new book “Colony Kids: Adventures of the First Year in Alaska” is written for students in fifth to eighth grades.

The stories in the book are fiction, but rooted in real-life stories that real-life Colony children — now senior citizens — told her over lunch and coffee during her four-year research process.

“They had great memories,” Lehe said. “The only ones who really know this history are the ones who lived it.”

She said she’s glad her book will help preserve their firsthand memories.

Publication Consultants of Anchorage published the book and she picked the first copies up Tuesday.

“It’s still sinking in — I have a book,” Lehe said.

The 160-page book also made it through the first round of cuts for the 2012-13 Battle of the Books reading list, she said.

“That was my whole goal, to get it into the hands of teachers and students,” Lehe said.

The story focuses on three fictional Colony kids named Paul, Maggie and Erik, but also includes some information about the group of homesteaders who made their homes in the Matanuska and Susitna valleys prior to the colonists’ arrival in 1935.

“The homesteaders are the ones who paved the way,” she said.

The story follows Paul, Maggie and Erik and their families as they leave their homes in Minnesota, Michigan and Wisconsin, make the trek to Alaska, their life living in tents for the first several months and ends with a Colony days celebration at the end of the first year.

Lehe will sign copies of her book at a release party from 2 to 5 p.m., Feb. 12 at her home. For driving directions, contact Lehe at 373-2541, or heather.lehe@gmail.com.

Lehe also is the guest speaker at the Palmer Historical Society’s monthly meeting at 7 p.m., Feb. 15 at the Palmer Public Library.

For now, copies of the book are available through Lehe and hopefully, she said, soon at Fireside Books in Palmer and Pandemonium Booksellers and Café in Wasilla.