With all that travel comes the experience of a new environment, and she considers herself a "magpie" because of such a life, getting a little experience here and there. Lottridge's family moved a lot while she was growing, rarely staying in one place for more than a few years. I think that happened enough in my life that I can identify with that." And their children so they're not making the decision. "I very often, in my books, somebody has to move from one pace to another. The idea of having to travel by necessity is something that is at the centre of many of her stories. There is one theme in particular that she often includes in her books, whether by conscious choice or not. If they like a book, they kind of take it into themselves in a way a lot of adult readers don't." The other reason is I like the way children read. You don't write about the hardships of pioneers, you just write about some pioneers in the bush. I like that you have to make the story tell what it is you want to tell. You can't write long paragraphs about what somebody thinks. Children's stories, you have to be economical.
The choice to write children's books, as opposed to other tales, was a decision she made, but doesn't really know why.
With folk tales like that, she said stories don't need to be memorized and each telling can have it's own life because the storyteller is part of the process. The story she shared with the children at the close of the session was The Name of the Tree, a story she's shared hundreds, perhaps thousands of times. She said because her audience is children, sharing stories is what they really care about. "It's easier for me to talk to children without a book in front of me because it's kind of a thing that's in between, so I hardly ever read (to an audience)." Having a book in front of her acts as a barrier, she said. She is quick to distinguish between telling stories and reading page-to-page to children. "For some reason I love telling stories," she said. Lottridge said after her presentation with the students that she became a librarian before writing, in large part because she loves to tell stories. Lottridge made a number of stops in Estevan schools on May 3, including an appearance at the library, where she told stories and answered the questions of Hillcrest School students from Grades 3 to 5. With nearly 30 authors touring around Canada for Children's Book Week, Estevan youth were lucky enough to hear the stories of Celia Barker Lottridge.
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