Staff photo / Brandon Cantwell Abby Kampenski, 8, of Hubbard stands on stage with author Eric Litwin as they sing about what makes them feel a bit better during his presentation Thursday night at Hubbard High School’s auditorium.

HUBBARD — Parents and children were lost in the dancing and music as Hubbard High School welcomed a bestselling children’s author with a powerful message.

More than 250 audience members filled the school’s auditorium Thursday evening to see Eric Litwin, an award-winning author of the original four “Pete the Cat” books, perform an interactive, 45-minute presentation that mixed storytelling and music to convey the value of human interactivity in making reading fun.

The New York City native, who was a teacher for several years, explained that witnessing the start of television and video games expand into things beyond human imagination inspired him to take such an angle with his books and stories.

“I felt that learning to read had changed; reading never had to compete with electronic devices. — I was watching the beginnings of extraordinary television shows, the increase in channels from four to 10 to 600,” Litwin said. “Video games became extraordinary, and I was realizing that this was problematic.”

With parents also getting busier, Litwin said he realized learning to read needed some “adaptation,” and felt making language in print as joyful as possible throughout the child’s life would do just the trick.

“For example, my books combine early literacy with movement, and all of these things are to promote reading together, making it more fun, making it as engaging as possible,” he said. “We can make reading and language development as fun as possible by adding simple little things like music and movement and common response.”

Litwin said he empathizes with parents, the father of a 4-year-old himself. He suggested parents integrate reading into everything parents do instead of making it into an add-on — as much as he said it would be great to happen.

“If you’re driving and you see signs, you read them together. If you’re at a restaurant, you read the menu together,” Litwin said. “And when you do that, be sure to make it incredibly fun if there’s a word that sounds silly, or if there’s a word you can add a movement to.”

Litwin acknowledged the struggles of reading at a college or high school level, pointing it to being like a game of dominos from an early age.

“When children don’t have a good reading foundation then reading instruction, which begins in the first grade, becomes very frustrating. By the third grade, they don’t like reading; when you don’t like reading, what do you do less of? Reading,” Litwin said. “Then they get further and further behind, so we have to begin with that reading foundation. This means from utero to age 5, 6, we are immersing them in joyful language.

Litwin said by making it engaging, human and joyful, the foundation for children forms, and instruction in schools improves them further.

Hubbard schools Superintendent Raymond Soloman said that bringing Litwin in was a collaborative effort between the city’s public library and Tricia Lockso, the district’s curriculum director.

“We felt that this was a good way to partner with both our Hubbard Public Library and the school system, making a family night, so therefore, our auditorium is filled in there,” Soloman said during Litwin’s performance. “We have a great turnout of families coming together to appreciate the importance and understanding of literature and reading.”

Soloman said Lockso worked for about a year to bring Litwin in.

Litwin’s time in Hubbard will not end with Thursday’s presentation, as he also is slated to lead a professional development workshop for the district’s elementary school teachers at 8 a.m. today.

Lockso, who said the school already exceeds state standards in early literacy per its 2023-2024 report card, said the workshop is mostly about engagement.

“With the movement about the science of reading in the state of Ohio and the governor’s plan to raise literacy, we’re always looking for how to keep the kids engaged and wanting to read,” Lockso said. “Because the more you teach them to learn early, it’s going to carry through.

“Sometimes in education, you need that refresher of the joy (of reading), and for the teachers to have that opportunity, it’s exciting,” she added.