EscondidoEscondido — Award-winning children’s author, poet and singer/songwriter Eric Ode taught elementary school for a dozen years before he threw in the towel.
It wasn’t that he had become burned out. Instead, the bespectacled Ode wanted to write children’s books after becoming inspired by kid classics like “Casey at the bat” and the “Cremation of Sam McGee.”
His love of music and country icons like Glen Campbell, Johnny Cash, Mac Davis and John Denver also shaped his creative bent. “They were my earliest inspirations,” said the 50-year-old Ode.
More than 15 years later, Ode has penned 10 books, contributed original poems, won several national awards and entertained countless kids with his musical and literary achievements.
This week, he brought his upbeat act — which features Ode singing, reading and engaging hundreds of students in interactive play — to 10 campuses in the Escondido Union School District.
His visit was sponsored by the Assistance League of Inland North County, which raises its funds to invite authors like Ode through thrift shop sales in Escondido.
At Juniper Elementary School on Wednesday, the bearded Ode wore red athletic shoes, jeans, a blue short-sleeved shirt and sported a black-stoned stud in his left ear.
He strummed his old Martin guitar and sang his own “I Love My Shoes,” to about 125 third graders.
They wiggled and smiled as they listened — even ing in on some stanzas.
“I like my sweater, but I love my shoes,” he sung with a spring in his body. “Stop the presses, I love my shoes. I got a hat near the railroad station. I like my hat, but I love my shoes.”
Occasionally, Ode would interrupt to tell the kids to sit on their pockets while he explained to them how he writes.
It’s not rocket science, he said. He scribbles down notes in an 8-inch-by-11-inch notebook, draws arrows connecting different phrases, crosses things out, and rewrites some story lines that lack character development or setting.
“I do a lot of thinking and always have my notebook with me,” said Ode a self-described coffee fiend who consumes about “five cups before the day’s out.”
“I’m a coffee snob. I’ll keep grounds in my freezer, and make a cup of coffee at my house, then walk to Starbucks and drink more,” he said.
In 2001, Ode jumped into writing full-time, after his wife’s career running a tiny chain of health and nutrition specialty stores grew to the point that the couple could afford to give up the security of Ode’s teaching job.
His first book was titled, “Dan, the Taxi Man,” and many more soon followed, including “Too Many Tomatoes,” “Bigfoot Does Not Like Birthday Parties,” “Sea Star Wishes — Poems from the Coast,” and “When You’re a Pirate Dog and Other Pirate Poems.”
Several of his albums have won Parents’ Choice Silver Honors Awards, including “I Love My Shoes” in 2005, “When You Smile” in 2008 and “Seven Clever Pirates” in 2010. Top songs include “Gophers in the Garden,” and “Hooray for Jessie Skunk.”
One of Ode’s poem, “Labels,” won a Grammy Award on an album called “All About Bullies … Big and Small.” The poem was read by Heidi Swedberg, who played the role of Susan Ross on several episodes of the comedy series Seinfield.
Ode said he’s now working on “middle-grade fiction,” aimed at children with a third and fourth grade reading level.
“It’s nothing too heavy,” said Ode, who provided no hints at his latest subject material. “I don’t even share a lot with my wife and two grown kids.”
Ode s a string of authors who’ve come to read and sing in Escondido schools over the last dozen years, including Matthew Gollob, Bruce Hale, Barney Saltzberg, Jeff Savage, David Schwartz and Lee Wardlaw. The Assistance League donates the authors’s books to school libraries.
