| By GLENDA CAUDLE
Special Features Editor
There was a bug in the rug Monday morning in Carrie Cooper’s kindergarten class at Union City Elementary School.
A sneaky shoe bug showed up, invited by Robbin Anne (Young) Robertson of Franklin. Mrs. Robertson was visiting the classroom because her grandson, Tucker Davis, is one of the students and is also featured in a children’s book she brought along to read and show to the boys and girls.
Mrs. Robertson, the daughter of Dr. Robert Young of Union City and Anne Clark Rogers of Hernando, Miss., and the mother of Jay Davis of Union City, is a 1977 graduate of Union City High School. She makes her home in Franklin, with her husband, Rodney Robertson, and has been a preschool teacher at New Hope Academy for 16 of the 26 years she has been an educator.
As a preschool teacher, the mother of two sons and the grandmother of eight, she knows the sneaky shoe bug rather well. He has been stealthily untying the shoes of little ones in her life for years.
Mrs. Robertson decided to write a book about the bug that causes such problems about three years ago. She has penned other books, but this is the first she has pursued through the publishing world.
“I love spending time with children — my own, my grandchildren and my students. I adore them and love their genuine carefree and creative spirits. Through the years I’ve watched as I read them books and I wanted to do that for them. Watching them and interacting with them gives me creative ideas for books. Right now I’m working on one about the day the glitter factory explodes,” she says.
Some of her other books are more faith-oriented than “The Sneaky Shoe Bug.” The series she calls “A Grandmother’s Heart,” is about opportunities to tell children about faith each day.
The children featured in Mrs. Robertson’s book are well-known to her, although they may appear slightly different when presented by illustrator Sarah Keaggy, who is a student at O’More Publishing in Franklin.
Tucker, her oldest grandson and the son of Jay and Angela Davis of Union City, gets to show off a design for a sneaky shoe bug trap he actually drew for his grandmother in the book. Other family members and friends featured in the guise of children in the publication include the five sons and daughters Mrs. Robertson and her husband, Rodney, share between them, plus their spouses, her other grandchildren who were already born at the time the book was written, a couple of nieces and the daughter of a friend. The characters are depicted as children in a multi-racial classroom — an important concept for Mrs. Robertson — but there are identifying characteristics, such as her son’s fondness for the University of Tennessee, that provide clues beyond first names for readers who know the author and her family well.
Mrs. Robertson has explained to Tucker, who got to show off his grandmother, her book and his own special drawing, that his little sister Elly Grace will be included in a later book, since she is newly arrived. The children are also the grandchildren of Bob and Sharon Regen of Union City.
Robbin Anne Robertson is not only a teacher, author and grandmother, she also is an instructor for Pilates. She says she is blessed to teach in a school that is Christ-centered where she can share her faith daily through teaching.
In addition to her local relatives, she also counts her son and daughter-in-law, Brad and Wendy Davis of Franklin and their two children, plus her three stepchildren and their families as special blessings.
“The Sneaky Shoe Bug” is available from amazon.com or barnesandnoble.com, at The Woman’s Clinic in Union City and at rarabooks.com, for those who want a signed copy. “Rara” is the special name Mrs. Robertson’s grandchildren use for her. Published in The Messenger 5.7.13 |
