Streator library hosts author Rosie Bosse

The Streator Public Library will be hosting a meet and greet with author Rosie Bosse from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. Tuesday, Aug. 9.

Bosse has written both children’s and adult Western books. Some of her selections will be available for purchase at the event at 130 S. Park St., and she will autograph them.

Bosse was born and raised on a farm in north central Kansas where she rode horses, milked cows, fed bucket calves, chopped thistles and hid to read whenever she could. Her parents, Kathryn Gallagher, a teacher, and Francis Eilert, a second-generation German immigrant, were sticklers on grammar, punctuation and speech. Both were avid readers. There was no television in her home when she was a child, and reading was a constant.

A small ranch outside of Onaga, Kansas, is where Rosie and, JR, her husband of 42 years, make their home. This is where they raised their four children. Her “Down on the Farm” series, featuring a dog named Clicker, is a replay of stories she tells her grandchildren. The grandkids are her best listeners and her toughest reviewers. People ask how many books she will write. Well, there are many animals on Mr. Farmer’s farm. (Side note: All of the animals in Bosse’s children’s books have names but none of the people do. That was not planned. She didn’t realize she was doing it until the third book was released.)

“Curly the Orphan Calf” is not part of the “Down on the Farm” series and was written after the 2017 fires in southwest Kansas. As someone who grew up on a farm and is still a part of agriculture, Bosse was touched emotionally by the events there. Both the tenacity and resilience of those affected as well as the generosity of strangers, moved her heart to write that book. Sometimes after reading it, children will tell her, “I cried when I read your book.” Her response is, “I cried when I wrote it.” However, she does promise that all of her children’s books will have a happy ending.

Writing a novel was not a lifelong dream for Bosse. In fact, becoming an author was never a goal. Even though she began to write poetry when she was in high school, her grandchildren were her inspiration to actually write a book. They created that with their love of her bedtime stories — stories that never led to a quiet bedtime.