Rooster’s work is out of this world
‘Axel Galench’ author ready to participate in Tejas Book Fest March 1

By MIKE BROWN
Reporter Editor

 Noted children’s author Rooster Morris will have a very short trip to Rockdale’s Tejas Book Festival, set for March 1 downtown, in and around the city library.
 Morris and wife Jody are now Rockdale residents, having moved here after Rooster—his real name is David but nobody calls him that—did a program at Rockdale Elementary School.
 He’s the author of two popular Axel Galench books, a third is in the editing process and he’s started the fourth of what is envisioned as a 10-book series.

Panhandle boy
 Morris grew up in the Texas and Oklahoma panhandles in the cowboy culture of working ranches. That’s where he got the nickname “Rooster” and it stuck.
 He started school in Masterson, Texas, graduated in Boise City, Oklahoma, was a working cowboy for a time and then got into the performing part of Western culture.
 “I’ve read to hundreds of thousands of children,” Morris said. From that experience came a desire to write, but not just write anything.
 “I wanted to write something that would engage children, be fast paced from the beginning and have plenty of cliff hangers,” he said. “But at the same time I wanted it to have enough word play that adults who read it to their kids might enjoy it too.”

Vocabulary
 Morris admits to taking “a little flak” because, while he definitely uses a limited vocabulary, he doesn’t shun complex words and if his young readers might go to a dictionary occasionally, so much the better.
 “I want children to become better readers,” he said. “I’d like to motivate them.”
 His books have been chosen as accelerated reading (AR) material. “One AR group chose them for third through fifth grades and one for fourth through sixth,” he smiled. “I’m not real sure what that means.”
 Morris has continued to travel and his performances continue to entertain.
 “I do all the voices,” he said. “It’s more than a reading.”

Rockdale move
 It was one of those performances which led him to Rockdale.
 “Everyone was so supportive, the kids, the school staff, they were just great to work with,” he said. “Jody and I drove around Rockdale and we found a house that was just perfect and we’re sure enjoying living here.”
 Jody Morris maintains the Axel Galench website and operates a world-wide on-line business.

Axel
 Axel Galench is a 12-year-old boy living on the planet of Mizmoe who is suddenly transformed into a human child and embarks on a quest to find the “Gate of No Return” and get back to his real home on Earth.
 Where did that plot line come from? It sure doesn’t sound like the stories told around a cowboy campfire in the Texas Panhandle.
 Morris laughs. “Well, from childhood you look up at the stars and you start to imagine. And you think about things people on other planets and a boy on another planet. And those are the kinds of stories that are popular with kids.”
 He worked for a while on the name. “I think ‘Axel’ just popped into my head,” Morris said.

Reading to kids
 The Morrises have four grown children and several grandchildren and he believes reading to kids, even in the age of iPods and texting cell phones is more important than ever.
 “I still believe reading to kids is the foundation, that developing good reading skills at an early age prepares them better for everything,” Morris said.
 And those attending the Tejas Book Festival will get to hear, and see, him do just that.

mike@rockdalereporter.com