A number of Hawley Elementary School students gathered in the school's gymnasium on Thursday, April 7, to hold a Skype session with author Kate Messner through Scholastic.

Following the school's Scholastic Book Fair, which ran from March 17 to 24, PTA members Susan Burbank and Jeni Walker, along with Hawley's library/media specialist Sara Wasley, arranged the session.

Ms Wasley introduced the students to the gathering, saying they would be able to see and hear the author talk on the screen set up for the event. Ms Messner, Ms Wasley said, would discuss how she came up with ideas for her books and what she thinks about those books.

Some of the students came holding copies of Ms Messner's books, like fourth grader Kyle Boughan, who had three books from Ms Messner's Ranger in Time Chapter Book Series in his hands before the session.

Kyle said he likes Ms Messner's books because they are unrealistic, as the main character is a dog that travels through time to help people, "but they have real facts."

Ms Messner, once the Skype session was connected through Scholastic, began her discussion with the students by focusing on how she came up with the idea for the first book in the series, Ranger in Time, Rescue on the Oregon Trail.

Ms Messner, who was speaking from her home in upstate New York, said she likes golden retrievers and one day she had an idea about a time-traveling trained rescue dog. She wrote the idea down in one of her multiple idea books, and later returned to it.

For her books, Ms Messner told the students, she researches the period of history that Ranger will be traveling to. For Ranger in Time, Rescue on the Oregon Trail, Ms Messner said she researched the Oregon Trail. For the second book in the series, Ranger in Time, Danger in Ancient Rome, Ms Messner read about Roman gladiators and spent a week touring the ruins of ancient Rome.

Ms Messner also explained her writing techniques for the students, and she walked them through a typical day in her life as a writer.

When holding up a revised draft of her first chapter, marked up by her editor, Ms Messner said, "Not much of that first chapter survived, did it?"

After receiving versions of her submitted book back from her editor, Ms Messner said, "Finally we have a book that you can read," while holding up a copy of her book before it went to print.

Ms Messner also answered student questions, with students taking turns to read their questions to the author.

After the Skype session was over, Ms Wasley asked students what they thought was the most interesting parts of the conversation with Ms Messner. Students said they liked hearing about all of Ms Messner's books, how she has a lot of ideas, how she has her own "writing spot," how she edits and revises her stories, and that she travels to places to write about them.