Caitlin's Party

By K. Lang-Slattery

All the campers have gone home and seven-year-old Caitlin is the only kid still at Camp Whispering Pines. Her mother and the other counselors are busy working to close camp for the winter. Caitlin has finished her chores and now she is bored. She wishes they could have an end of summer party, but she knows the adults are always tired after a long day of working. Caitlin decides she will plan the party herself. She asks Cookie to make a cake and sets off to help the other adults with their chores. As Caitlin walks around camp and helps the adult counselors with their work, readers will learn what it takes to close down a camp for the winter. Will Caitlin be able to convince the adults to come to her party? And if so, will it be a success? Caitlin’s party is a story of a young girl’s determination and her friendship with adults. The many black and white illustrations show Caitlin’s activities and help reader’s understand a game of charades. Special fun is added by a raccoon family who lives at the camp.

• Language: English
• Publisher: K. Lang-Slattery
• Release date: Jun 1, 2021
• ISBN: 9781734279696

K. Lang-Slattery

Born during World War II and raised in 1950s Southern California, Kathryn Lang-Slattery enjoyed a childhood filled with reading, drawing, and long days at the beach. College took her to Los Angeles where she studied art and English at UCLA, graduated with a BFA, and then undertook graduate work in art and education at the University of the Americas in Mexico City. In the following years she taught art, English, and cooking, travelled around the world, raised a daughter and a son, and devoted over 20 years to the Girl Scouts as a leader and community supervisor. Finally, she returned to her early love of writing. She has had stories and articles published in several highly rated magazines for the youth market, including Spider, Ladybug, Jack and Jill, Boys’ Life, and Faces.In the 1990s, Lang-Slattery became fascinated with her uncle’s World War II stories and began taping his memories. Soon she knew she had found a fascinating untold story of Jewish refugees who became silent heroes. More than a decade spent researching, interviewing Ritchie Boys, and turning the true story of her uncle into fiction became an odyssey of discovery that resulted in her first adult novel, Immigrant Soldier, The Story of a Ritchie Boy. . “I wanted to tell this story,” she says, “because it was different from any other Holocaust story I had read. The young Jewish hero is not a victim, but a young man who gradually grows from a frightened and frustrated teenager, looking for a place to belong, into a confident US Army intelligence officer who struggles with the conflicting emotions of hate and forgiveness.”Kathryn has become an expert on the secret heroes known as The Ritchie Boys and her experiences as an indie-publisher have given her insight into this long and complicated process. Always an educator, she is happy to share what she has learned along the way.After two years spent promoting her novel, Lang-Slattery has returned to children’s literature. Her early chapter book series is based on her childhood memories of summer camp where her mother was the life-guard and backpacking specialist. Written for ages five to nine, Tagalong Caitlin is about a little girl with big ideas, a plan to help her reach her goal, and determination. Caitlin’s Buddy is about camp experiences and friendship.Kathryn’s memoir, Wherever the Road Leads, recounts living and traveling in a Volkswagen van with her new husband. Their adventure lasted two years and took them across four continentsKathryn (who prefers to be called Katie) lives in Laguna Beach, only steps from her childhood home. She finds tranquillity simply by looking out the large windows of her living room toward a view of her garden and Aliso Peak beyond.

Book preview

Caitlins PartyCaitlins Party

Copyright © 2021 by Kathryn Lang-Slattery

Illustrations © 2021 Ron Whitacre and Kathryn Lang-Slattery

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the author.

ISBN: 978-1-7342796-7-2 (paperback)

ISBN: 978-1-7342796-8-9 (Kindle)

ISBN: 978-1-7342796-9-6 (epub)

Summary: All the campers have gone home, and seven-year-old Caitlin is the only kid still at camp. Her mother and the other counselors are busy working to close camp for the winter. Caitlin wants an end-of-summer party, but she must convince the tired counselors to come. She decides to help the adults with their chores and organize a fun party herself.

1. Summer Camp—Fiction

2. Planning a Party—Fiction

3. Charades—Fiction

Library of Congress Number: 2021906480

Cover and Book Design by Lorie DeWorken, Mind the Margins, LLC

Edited by Lorraine Fico-White, Magnifico Manuscripts, LLC

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

1. Bored

2. An Idea

3. Cookie Helps

4. Lunch Break

5. Lost and Found

6. Helping Out

7. Yummy

8. A Visitor

9. Charades

10. Goodnight

About the Author

About the Illustrator

Caitlin sat in the big rocking chair on the porch of the staff bunkhouse. She pushed the floor with her feet to make the chair rock and nibbled the sandwich from her sack lunch. The summer had been