GREAT FALLS – In January, we introduced you to Lakey Lynn Acra, the five-year-old who is the inspiration behind her dad’s series of books.
“The first book of the series, we didn’t really have a plan. I started a publishing company and I was getting submissions from some people who wanted to do a children’s book. I had never done one. So Lakey and I at the time, she was trying to give up her pacifier, so we always sang the song and we turned it into a book. It did really well, people really enjoyed it,” author and dad Ryan Acra said.
And now, the two are celebrating their second book for the series: Lakey Lynn and the Ferocious Fit.
“That’s too tight, it’s too loose, it’s too high, that’s too low. Socks are weird, socks are silly, I won’t wear them. I won’t go,” Lakey Lynn read.
It’s about a kid who hates to wear socks.
“At the time she was going through a ‘my socks feel funny stage’ and so we thought, ‘What a great idea to write another book on how kids struggle with things in life?’” Acra said.
Acra added the two have many more books planned for the future.
“When the last book came out, I got the greatest compliment in the world. I was at the grocery store and somebody I didn’t know really well, came up and said, ‘I hate you.’ And I said ‘What, sorry!’ And he said, ‘I have to read that darn Lakey Lynn book every night, it’s the only book my kid will go to sleep to.’ He read it so much that he was tired of it. I think it’s great,” Acra said.
He said the best part about being an author in Great Falls, Montana is getting to meet and hear from the people who read his books.
“I hope that we write books that people can relate to and people with kids or even without, can sort of laugh with the kids and hopefully it’s catchy enough that the kids sort of enjoy it and make it their routine. That’s really what we want is as many people to read it as we can,” Acra said.
Acra owns a publishing company called The Get It Factory. He takes submissions for books at any stage in the process.
“My passion is helping people get their stories out,” Acra said.
He’s also the author of a series called Sugarbeet Falls.
To buy his books, you can head to Amazon, Barnes and Nobles, or The Get It Factory.
Reporting by Elizabeth Transue for MTN News
