Patrick Wood’s doodles hit children’s bookshelves.
by Sara Schafer | sschafer@ruralmissouri.coop
Rumble, rumble, rumble … boom! “Ahhhhh!” screams Cat, as he watches the thunderstorm rage outside and his house turns dark. “We’re doomed!”
“Don’t worry, our electric cooperative will have the power back on very soon,” said Duck.
“What’s an electric cooperative?” asked Cat.
And so begins the gripping, whimsical and educational tale of “Cat & Duck and the Electric Cooperative.” This new children’s book was written and illustrated by Patrick Wood, manager of communications at Co-Mo Connect, an electric cooperative based in Tipton. He combined his creative skills with his focus on cooperatives to teach young children about the amazing world of electric cooperatives.
An avid doodler, Patrick typically pulls out the sketchbook or tablet after his children go to bed. He and his wife, Lauren, have three children: Grayson, 11; Parker, 9; and Flora, 3. So, their house is filled with children’s books. One night the idea hit him — what if he made a children’s book about electric cooperatives?
“I wanted to target kids ages preschool through first grade, because our cooperative didn’t have any programs that cater to children that young,” he says. “We have programs about electrical safety for older elementary kids and middle schoolers and great leadership programs for high schoolers. But there wasn’t anything for the young kids.”
As any author does, Patrick started with the characters. “I looked around my house and saw our cat,” he says. “So, I drew a cat. I had an idea the cat was going to be the kid in the story. There would be an outage, and I needed an adult figure. So, I drew a duck. I did a quick Google search and found out kids’ books should be roughly 30 to 40 pages. That night I did a quick outline of the story.”
Over the next few days, Patrick put pen to paper and wrote the story. Cat and Duck would jump into a time machine to learn how electric cooperatives were formed, where electricity comes from, how cooperatives are run today and how lineworkers restore power outages. Patrick converted his original doodles to digital files through the illustration app Procreate. In just about a week, his original idea turned into files ready to be sent to the printer. “It was a crazy idea — I wrote a kids’ book about electric co-ops,” he says. “My co-op definitely lets us have some creative freedom, but even I thought this one might be a bit far out there. So, I wanted to quickly prove it was a good idea.”
Patrick reached out to his alma mater, Morgan County R-II School District in Versailles, to set up a reading of his book for the preschool and kindergarten classes. He wanted to read the book, give a copy to all the students and have the children go outside to see a bucket truck and meet a lineman from Co-Mo Connect.
“If all else fails, a lineman in a bucket going up will always be a crowd pleaser for preschool through first grade,” Patrick says. “The lineman, Zach Wells, gets in the bucket and starts going up. Based on the sound the kids made, you would have thought Taylor Swift came around from behind. The kids lost their minds and just went crazy for it. His son was in that group, so it was extra special.”
In the last six months, Patrick has read to students all across Co-Mo’s service territory — Stover, Tipton, Jamestown, Pilot Grove and more. The magical part, he says, is gifting all the children a copy of the book. “These kids are young enough they can’t read yet, but I’m giving them a book,” Patrick says. “So, their parents read it to them, and they all learn together. I know I’ve learned a great many things by reading books to my kids. For some kids, this may be their first or only book on their bookshelf, and they now have something of their own.”
Patrick shared the book with his network of electric cooperative communicators across the country. Many loved it and are now offering it to children in their service areas. So far, he says, multiple co-ops in 26 states have read or shared the book.
The success and response to “Cat & Duck and the Electric Cooperative” led Patrick to write a second book, “A Lineman’s Day with Co-Mo Joe.” It was released in conjunction with National Lineman Appreciation Day in April. The book includes a page where children can color Co-Mo Joe, cut him out and physically take him through the pages of the book. The book includes photos of Co-Mo Connect Lineman Danny Wood as he highlights tools, safety precautions and typical tasks of lineworkers.
This summer Patrick plans to release a sequel to “Cat & Duck” that focuses on electric safety. “I have so many creative ideas, but writing a book wasn’t necessarily a plan for me,” he says. “But it’s been fun, and I can’t believe it exploded like it did. My mom was an elementary teacher for 30 years, and I think she would appreciate this book.”
Patrick joined the Co-Mo Connect team in 2019. His days are filled with managing the communication efforts for the cooperative and its fiber internet business. Whether he’s polishing up their local pages for this magazine, coordinating students to attend Youth Tour, organizing their annual meeting or sharing important updates on social media, Patrick is always focused on spreading the good word about cooperatives.
You can download copies of Patrick Wood’s books at www.catandduck.org. You’ll also find coloring pages and more information. Contact Patrick at pwood@co-mo.coop.