Scarlett Radke follows in mom's footsteps, publishes children's book
Jan. 10—MITCHELL — At age 5, Scarlett Radke wanted to be like her mom Amanda and write her own children's book.
Amanda,
who has penned nine children's books based on agriculture and life on farms and ranches over the years,
was more than pleased, but she had a suggestion before Scarlett got started.
"Step one was you have to learn to read and write first," Amanda told the Mitchell Republic in a recent interview.
It was a reasonable first step, and Scarlett spent the next few years studying her reading and writing skills. Now, at age 9, she has accomplished her goal of becoming a published author with the release of "Scarlett & Lucky," a children's book written and illustrated by the budding wordsmith with a little help from her mother.
The book, which recounts the true story of the family's adoption of a bull calf born premature in the snow during a blizzard, is now available for sale and has taken Scarlett on promotional book tours of sorts as she accompanies her mom,
an agricultural journalist, on speaking engagements around the United States.
Like Scarlett, Amanda was inspired to become an author at a young age when
Jean Patrick, who currently serves as children's services librarian at the Mitchell Public Library,
came to Amanda's kindergarten classroom for a presentation on a children's book Patrick had written.
"She is our veterinarian's wife, so we had him out at the ranch growing up helping with cattle stuff. And Jean came into my classroom in kindergarten and shared one of her children's books," Amanda said. "And I thought, wow. Seeing someone in our town that could do something like that just planted a seed for me."
Understanding that creative spark, Amanda helped guide her daughter through the process creating a book about this special calf the family had named Lucky.
"The first process was my mom got out a piece of paper — we have to write down what the story is going to be about," Scarlett said. "We have to write down what each page is going to look like. So we wrote that down, and that's called an outline. Once that was done I started sketching out all the pictures by using some real pictures of Lucky and using those as my inspiration."
There was a lot of starting over as illustrations were reworked and carefully sketched and colored in. The family had to buy a special pack of black colored pencils as Scarlett went through an abundance of them as she worked to get the image of Lucky — a black calf — just right.
When it came to the writing process, Scarlett dictated the story to Amanda, who manned the keyboard and transcribed Scarlett's vision. This was important, as while Scarlett had learned to read and write, she was still working on other skills.
"Mom kind of typed out the words but I told her what to write," Scarlett said. "Because I can't type yet."
But she has a knack for storytelling, which is something audiences and classrooms are learning firsthand when she stops by to read her book to students.
Scarlett was on hand Friday, Jan. 5 at Longfellow Elementary School in Mitchell to read "Scarlett & Lucky" to students in grades two through five at the school, after which she held a question and answer session.
Jacey Jira, a second-grade teacher at Longfellow Elementary, said it was a great way for her students, many of whom have no experience with a working farm, to understand what goes on a farm or ranch.
"I could probably count on one hand the number of students, out of 75 in attendance, that have real-life experience on a farm or ranch," Jira said. "Many of them probably don't even know what a burger is made out of. They were very intrigued as they learned about how to take care of cows and the prep work that goes into making food for cattle to eat."
Jira said in addition to the lessons learned about life on the farm, students benefited from seeing someone roughly their own age talk about their writing and creative process. That's not always an easy thing for young children to express, and watching Scarlett talk about her book helped ease those fears.
"Her confidence in a room full of people, young and old, showed the learners that it's okay to do hard things that not everyone is capable of doing. She inspired each person in the room to find their passion and run with it," Jira said. "I cannot wait to see how that little author, illustrator, speaker and cowgirl will continue to change the world."
Scarlett has also presented on her book to her fellow schoolmates at St. John Paul II Elementary School in Mitchell, and both she and Lucky are familiar faces at various Ag in the Classroom events in the area.
Like Amanda's books, "Scarlett & Lucky" is self-published and currently available for sale on
Scarlett also sells books at Amanda's speaking engagements, where she often introduces her mom before her presentations. She signs every book she sells, leading her to discover the discomfort of hand cramps for the first time.
Scarlett said she's pleased people seem to like the book.
"They like it. I think it's maybe because I'm young? Or the book is good," Scarlett said.
And there is likely more to come. Scarlett said she has ideas for a book about Christmas and a book about Easter, though this time around the books could be a team effort between mother and daughter, with Amanda penning the words and Scarlett sketching the pictures.
"We've decided we're probably a better team if we work together, so we've been bouncing a lot of ideas off each other where I would be the writer and she would be the illustrator," Amanda said. "So there may be a mother-daughter writing due book coming out next."
Scarlett said she's looking forward to collaborating with her mom, if for no other reason than she loves the process of writing and drawing. She also enjoys it because there is no math involved.
"I like drawing because I'm good at it. Just like I like spelling and reading because I'm good at it," Scarlett said. "Just like I hate math because I'm not good at it."
Amanda laughs at the comment, again seeing the fiery creative spark of a budding author.
"And she's super-honest and we'll work on the humble part," Amanda said.
