Local man pens amazing new children's book

Art doesn’t always end up the way the artist initially planned, and for local author Adam Hopper, that is an incredibly good thing.

Hopper’s new book, “The Hairy Adventures of Harry the Bear: and his Disgusting Sidekick Stanky the Dog,” was published in February and all early feedback is showing that the children’s story is nothing short of a hit.

Unsurprisingly, this story doesn’t have any sort of conventionality to it as Hopper, 42, isn’t an author, but rather a 20-plus-year journeyman electrician.

Hopper had always thought about writing a book, but never even remotely considered writing a children’s story, but parenthood seems to change things and in this case it was the thing that pushed Hopper toward pursuing his dream.

“The catalyst (for writing the book) was an article I ran across about 10 months ago explaining how a large percentage of parents have very little, or perhaps nothing to leave their children after they pass away,” Hopper said. “For some reason this struck a major nerve with me. I thought about it multiple times a day for two or three months straight. I looked at several options, such as building a few apartment complexes, starting a clothing line, other small businesses — you know, something that could potentially generate revenue for many, many years to come.”

While in the midst of dwelling on this thought, he also began noticing another constant.

His 4-year-old son had seemingly lost interest in the books Hopper would read to him, admittedly Hopper also lost interest in these reads as well, which was really where the rubber met the road.

“I set out to create a book that would capture and keep the attention of both adults and children,” Hopper said. “It started out as a simple rhyme in my head at work, and in the short span of about three hours the story was complete. Two days went by and apparently my brain wasn’t done writing, so I wrote a second story. And because I was having so much fun with it, I turned around and quickly wrote a third a few days later.”

“The Hairy Adventures of Harry the Bear” is an adorable story which drew much of its inspiration from Hopper’s youngest child and his disdain for getting his hair cut.

“He absolutely detests haircuts and it has become a comical battle of wills between he and his mother,” Hopper said. “We’ve tried everything from extreme bribery to ultimatums. He wins 98% of the time. I guess you could say that the book is my way of telling him that if he chooses to have a shaggy head of hair, it’s perfectly acceptable.”

The entire project took Hopper five months to get from the initial idea to publication, which was a lot quicker than what he initially thought possible.

“It was remarkable how well things fell together,” Hopper said. “The planets aligned, I found an amazing illustrator, an incredible editor, had a very supportive family, and before I knew it, it was for sale on Amazon.”

Hopper has been an electrician for 24 years and despite his new fame, he still doesn’t see himself as a writer.

He’s not ruling anything out though.

“Truthfully, I haven’t even thought of myself as being an author. I'm so laser-focused with my job and life that it never crosses my mind,” Hopper said. “I kind of look at it like building a fence in my backyard: sure, it looks nice, and I’m proud of it, but I don’t deserve the title of ‘professional fence builder.’ I love what I do and can’t really see myself delving into a new field. I’ve tried it before and it has more than once backfired in my face. But, that could be subject to change if I parked four or five more books under my belt. Time will tell.”

Hopper has received accolades from several outlets, including Kirkus Reviews, a well-known American book review magazine who gave the book a positive review.

"Told in rhyme, Hopper’s story offers an appealing blend of gross-out humor and compassion," the review read. "An amusingly silly and gross animal tale with a warm heart."

Hopper is also in the process of donating copies of the book to the local public libraries, local school libraries, local hospitals, and children's hospitals throughout the Pacific Northwest.

“The Hairy Adventures of Harry the Bear: and his Disgusting Sidekick Stanky the Dog” is available for purchase in paperback, hardcover and ebook on Amazon, as well as at The Well-Read Moose and Figpickles Toy Emporium.