Worthington native has her first children’s book published

WORTHINGTON — Imagine yourself in a deep sleep, dreaming of the sound of ocean waves rippling toward shore. It seems so real you can even smell the ocean, its waters spraying a mist upon your face.

That’s how former Worthington resident Linda Lang described the dream that resulted in her first published children’s book, The Little Mouse with a Big Heart. The book, produced and published by Christian Faith Publishing, debuted mid-summer and can be purchased in either hard cover or paperback form through all major booksellers. For a limited time, area residents may purchase a copy at the Nobles County Art Center’s Holiday Show & Sale (signed copies are available). The show is open through Nov. 27.

The story’s setting is a picturesque beach, where Lang dreamed of a little mouse scampering along the shoreline.

“All of a sudden, he runs over to his little hut, made out of clay and just the right size for a little mouse,” shared Lang, the dream still as vivid as the night it came to her. “I thought, how could this be, on the ocean? All of a sudden he’s dancing and doing acrobats. Here we are in magic land.”

As the dream progressed, Lang knew she needed to take notes — to write down everything she saw and heard. This wasn’t the first time a story came to her in a dream.

“I used to have a journal,” she said, keeping one beside her bed for just these moments. That night, however, “I was looking for pieces of paper — an envelope — or anything.”

She quickly wrote her notes on a plethora of paper pieces, and ultimately took the papers to her friend, Pat Kunze, with a request to type up the notes and make some semblance of their order.

“It was just what I wrote and then I continued to work on it to make it longer,” Lang shared. “There were things I hadn’t written down, and then I expanded on some things.”

Eventually, life became busy for Lang and the makings of her book were tucked away in a spiral-bound notebook and forgotten about. She estimates she had the dream in around 2017 and wrote the manuscript at that time.

About a handful of years later, Lang discovered the story while going through some items and reread it.

“I thought, ‘This was really good. Why didn’t I do anything with it?’” she said.

Around that time, Lang had attended a program about writing books at the Nobles County Library in Worthington. It’s where she learned of Christian Faith Publishing. Lang researched the company and thought her budding children’s book would fit with the goals of the institution.

“I sent the manuscript in and they had to approve it,” she recalled. Approve it they did, and said they wanted to make it into a book. “And then the journey began.”

Over the course of the last three years, the publisher worked with Lang on the book, with much of the time spent creating visuals. Because Lang doesn’t have a computer, everything had to be sent by mail back and forth.

Lang said her initial sketches included stick figures to give the illustrator some direction, but then she progressed to full drawings with color.

“I thought I’d just draw it out because they (the illustrators) weren’t in the dream — how would they know?” she said. “I went back to the dream best I could.”

The book’s cover features Little Mouse with his dancing cane, seated on a block of cheese floating on the water.

“I put the word Joy above the mouse’s head (on a mast),” she said. “I thought, this is what I want this book to be — joyful — things to make our children happy.”

Perhaps there’s a double meaning there as well — the now published book has brought joy to Lang.

“You pray about things but you don’t always know if it’s going to happen,” she said. “Things don’t happen the way we always want them to happen.”

Lang had previously published a book about Michael’s, the Worthington steakhouse that was her family’s legacy in the community. She has many more manuscripts for children’s books out with various publishers, and is waiting and hoping for them to be accepted.

Last December, a story she wrote about Ella Fitzgerald was published in the Music Educators National Journal.

“That was a big deal for me,” she said.

Lang grew up in Worthington and graduated from Augustana College in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, where she studied music education, taught voice lessons and directed a women’s choir. She became a junior high music teacher and taught in Sioux Falls from 1972 to 1979. While working toward her master’s degree, she became sick and lost her voice, thus ending the pursuit of her degree.

Lang moved to Arizona for a brief period and then ended up in Los Angeles, California.

“A lot of things happened while I was in L.A.,” she said. “I was playing pipe organ, organ and directing choirs. I was hired by schools to play for musicals and community organizations, and I was a musical contractor, doing as many things as I could.”

She was also writing songs and going into a studio, and was ultimately hired to write Mother Goose songs for a children’s workout video.

“It was for 3-year-olds doing exercises to songs I wrote based on Mother Goose rhymes,” Lang said. The video was recognized with the LA Award of Excellence for Children.

Writing has always been closely tied to Lang’s music. She’s written shows, children’s shows for churches, HATS — a music monologue that she performed both at Augustana and the Nobles County Historical Society — and a book of poetry.

Lang moved from Los Angeles back to Worthington in 2003 to care for her aging parents, and then her brother, Larry. While in Worthington, she completed the Institute of Children’s Bookwriting course work and had several jobs playing organ at local churches.

Lang moved to Marshall in July, and while she continues to play organ for St. Matthew Lutheran in Worthington, St. John Lutheran in Rushmore and a Lutheran church in Brewster, she said that will end when the weather gets bad. She’s now playing for a couple of churches in Marshall.

“I’m still figuring out what’s next,” she said. “I’m thinking about a sequel for this book.”

The Little Mouse with a Big Heart is geared for readers ages six to 12. The book is available at the Nobles County Library.

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