GUILDERLAND — Daniel J. Mahoney is an accidental author.

Since he was a boy, he loved drawing, he says. Drawings filled up his notebooks in school; many of them were of his dog and other favorite animals.

When he first showed his portfolio to a publisher, he was asked to provide a story to go along with the pictures.
"When I brought it back, they said, ‘Keep going,’" recalled Mahoney. He did.

That became his first book, The Saturday Escape, published by Clarion Books in 2002.

The book tells the story of three friends — a bear named Jack, a rabbit named Angie, and a mouse named Melden — who skip their Saturday chores, sneaking out to their library’s story hour instead. Conscience overcomes them and they leave the library to help each other complete their chores, ending with their own story hour.

Mahoney’s illustrations have the refreshing naiveté of primitive paintings. The animal characters are two-dimensional and are painted with a whimsical, child-like spontaneity. The illustrations amplify the text in unexpected and fun ways.
For example, when Angie feels guilty at the story hour because she’s not practicing the piano, she recalls her recital. "Her dad had been so proud of her that night," the text says, "and he’d gone to a lot of trouble to tape her performance."

The picture fleshes this out as it depicts Angie’s dad, hiding in a bush on stage, holding out a microphone while the spotlight shines on Angie at the grand piano.

While Mahoney’s books may carry a moral message, they are not preachy.
"I wasn’t planning on being an author," says Mahoney with a shrug.

Tuesday morning, bright and early, Mahoney was standing in front of a class of kindergartners at Guilderland Elementary School, holding that first book and encouraging them to become authors.
On the wall behind Mahoney was posted a giant sheet of paper, asking, "What should I have on my paper"" The answer: A picture should be on top, with words below.
"I know you guys like to start stories with pictures," said Mahoney to the three dozen upturned faces.

One by one, the kids told him of some of the things they had drawn — a horse, after taking a riding lesson; a sleeping turtle, after seeing one in a pond; a skateboard, after boarding at a friend’s house.
Mahoney encouraged them, "It can be a very small, little thing that happens in your life and you can write a big story about it."
He also asked, "Who has written about something that never happened, that you made up"" And he encouraged them, "You might try drawing pictures of what pops into your head and then write a story about those pictures."

Every student an author

The school is holding its two-week-long annual Young Authors’ Celebration, a tradition for nearly 20 years. Each student, from the youngest in kindergarten to the oldest in fifth-grade, is encouraged as an author.

Two published visiting authors — Mahoney this week and Ralph Fletcher, a nationally recognized writer and educator, next week — are part of this year’s celebration.
"It’s nice for the kids to see a local author," said second-grade teacher Beth Scott. "It’s graspable and close to home."
Mahoney is a favorite of hers. "He’s an x-ray technician at Albany Medical Center and one of our student’s mother works with him....He is so relaxed and friendly with the kids. They get him," she said.

Although the two-week celebration highlights kids as authors, Scott said, the focus is on writing all year long.
"In Guilderland, we have them writing every day," said Scott. "We try to teach kids skills and strategies and genres. But they pick their own topics. They take ownership.
"To be an author, they have to write for a reason, for an audience....it can be parents or peers," she said.

Writing is structured along a reliable pattern, starting with kids’ collecting ideas, said Scott. The older students keep notebooks with these ideas, she said.
"They choose an idea and spend time trying it out in different ways," said Scott. "We call it nurturing." After a first draft, there is editing, revising, rewriting, and finally publishing, she said.
Trudy Warner, a first-grade teacher at Guilderland, graciously sought to include a visiting reporter into the writing lesson, introducing her as if she were a hero, so that the kids squirmed in their seats, raising their hands for the honor of escorting "the writer" to another classroom.

The two chosen escorts — Emily Williams and Zachary Berrada — were each eager to talk about what they had written.
"I wrote about building a teepee out of sticks," said Berrada.
"I wrote about going to a friend’s house," said Williams, with shining eyes. She said she likes to be an author "because you get to tell your own stories about the people you know."

"The kids get it"

Between sessions on Tuesday, Mahoney told The Enterprise that, while being an x-ray technician pays the bills, what he really relishes is staying at home with his two-year-old son, Ryan, and working on his books.
"He has favorites he keeps asking me to read that aren’t mine," Mahoney said with a laugh.
Mahoney has "a million picture books in the house," he said and limits his son’s television viewing to an hour a day — of Sesame Street.
"My mother used the TV as a baby sitter," he said, calling that "an easy way out."

He prefers promoting the individual thinking that comes with book-reading.
During his school presentations, Mahoney said, "I try to foster individual thinking and to have kids use their imagination."
Talking to other groups, he reported, kids would tell him they had written stories or drawn pictures of Sponge Bob or Ninja Turtles. "I tell them, ‘Take something that happened in your life.’"

Mahoney said the tack he was taking with Guilderland classes this week was different than his usual presentations.
"Mrs. Warner told me the students here do a lot of writing. She asked me to suit it to the program...The kids give me so much to bounce off of," he said. "Kids that age are so proud of the things they do."
Mahoney said that, when he creates a book, he tries to get across a lesson "without being too didactic." With his second book, The Perfect Clubhouse, for example, a story in which the characters have different priorities, "They learn it can be all of their ideas; they learn cooperation on their own," said Mahoney.

With his third book, A Really Good Snowman, Jack’s tag-along little sister, Nancy, wants to help as Jack and Angie and Melden build a snowman for a contest.
"The little sister makes a mess; the big brother realizes she’s still his little sister and the loyalty becomes what is important, not the contest," says Mahoney.
Guilderland Elementary librarian, Meg Seinberg-Hughes, who helped to organize the event, said she likes Mahoney’s books because they "have a nice simple message but they don’t hammer you over the head, so the kids get it."
Mahoney’s audience on Tuesday morning was made up not only of rapt listeners but appreciative readers. Referring to his second book, Mahoney asked, "Have you heard of The Perfect Clubhouse"" He was answered with a chorus of, "Yes! Yes! I love it! Yes!"
"That really happened to me when I was seven or eight years old," Mahoney tells his eager audience. "Our clubhouse was a refrigerator box." He and his friends had fun in his backyard, making the box into a clubhouse, but they differed on what its purpose should be.
"I wanted it to be an artist’s studio," Mahoney told the kids. One of the girls wanted it to be a sports clubhouse, he said, and another girl liked science. "She wanted to bring her magnifying glass and look at bugs," he said.
"Do you still have the clubhouse"" asked a kindergartner.
"It collapsed in the rain," answered Mahoney. "But I wish I still had it."

At the end of the session, the kids called out requests for Mahoney to draw.
"Draw the bunny!" one girl requested with urgency.
Mahoney obliged, explaining as he drew, "I got the name Angie from this woman that lived behind me...She was older than me but we had the same birthday. Every March 5th, she would give me Rice Krispie Treats and I’d give her a rock or a drawing."
For Mahoney’s final drawing, the kindergarten kids set up a shout for a roller-skating hamster. After Mahoney thought he had completed the drawing, a girl told him solemnly, "He needs a helmet."
"I completely forgot about the helmet; I’m so sorry," said Mahoney, as he quickly added the polka-dotted topper.
The final comment was made by a kindergarten boy. "I like all your books and you’re very nice," he said.

The author broke into a wide smile as the kids clustered about him for high fives.
"I have to save my hand for drawing," said Mahoney as he enthusiastically slapped hands with the kindergartners.