{"id":22166,"date":"2025-03-19T01:46:41","date_gmt":"2025-03-19T07:46:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/?p=22166"},"modified":"2025-03-17T15:46:55","modified_gmt":"2025-03-17T21:46:55","slug":"all-hale-the-storyteller","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/2025\/03\/19\/all-hale-the-storyteller\/","title":{"rendered":"All Hale the Storyteller"},"content":{"rendered":"

Author Nathan Hale Might Just Have Found An Antidote For Our Kids\u2019 Literacy Malaise<\/em> <\/strong><\/p>\n

By Jennifer Liebrum
\n<\/em><\/p>\n

\"\"
WRMS students challenged Nathan Hale to a quiz show using details from an array of popular young adult literature. Hale landed somewhere in the middle. Photo Credit: Samantha Archibald Mora<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Judging by the reaction of the toughest crowd any human can face\u2013middle schoolers\u2013Nathan Hale seems to have honed a remedy for the nation\u2019s reading and retention problem.<\/p>\n

As a New York Times best-selling author of historical fiction for young adults, Hale knows his way around titter-inducing fart humor and gasp-inducing gore.<\/p>\n

But cannier still is his ability to amplify historical events that might otherwise be overlooked, bringing to light some encouraging and little-known facts, recounting them in a palatable way using his skills as an illustrator.<\/p>\n

His incredibly popular Hazardous Tales\u201313 historical non-fiction biographical novels with a focus on American history are celebrated for \u201clively, rigorously researched, visually engaging stories,\u201d according to the School Library Journal.<\/p>\n

Hale is retired from the school circuit, but was coaxed out thanks to Wood River Middle School librarian Samantha Archibald Mora, who met him at a book signing.<\/p>\n

\u201cI told him that if he were ever to visit, he should come to our school. His reply: If you can get me skiing in Sun Valley, I\u2019ll come to your school for free. Deal struck!\u201d<\/p>\n

Mora secretly went about upping the ante to ensure an RSVP from Hale.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur community did WAY better than that,\u201d Mora said. Hale was invited to a two-week stay as a Writer-in-Residence at the Hemingway House through The Community Library.<\/p>\n

The Utah native shared his unique riff on famed explorers Lewis and Clark, and given the audience\u2019s rapt attention and laughter, Hale deftly proved he has their pulse.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy whole job is to dig through history and find things that are positive,\u201d he told a packed audience at the Hailey school last week. \u201cThat can be difficult to do since history is filled with so many horrible things.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"
Author Nathan Hale filled up the auditorium with students. Photo Credit: Samantha Archibald Mora<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

At WRMS, it took Hale a little under an hour to bring history to life, and enlist a new batch of fans.
\nSitting comfortably at a table, a small screen in front, mic in one hand, pen in the other, and a big screen at his back, Hale silenced a twitchy audience within minutes using his tenor and pacing to enhance a fast and funny narration of the following:<\/p>\n

This misadventure began shortly after America purchased a whole lot of real estate called the Louisiana Purchase in 1803 and Capt. Meriwether Lewis and Lt. William Clark were dispatched on a U.S. military excursion meant to survey and document the land mass to prove its worth.<\/p>\n

It was opined that Lewis should pick up a medical kit and some last-minute tips on field medicine from the then Surgeon General Dr. Benjamin Rush. Lewis balked, \u201cwe aren\u2019t going to get hurt,\u201d but, he went anyway because he was shamed by others who called that thinking, \u201cthe stupidest plan ever.\u201d<\/p>\n

Rush taught him to use blood-sucking leeches for simple wounds, you know, gunshots and such. If a broken bone isn\u2019t healing, he was to grab the bone saw, and amputate. There would be a lot of blood on his face, and screaming, which should be ignored.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m not telling this to make you laugh, this is real,\u201d Hale sidebarred.<\/p>\n

Rush threw in some liquid mercury and his namesake stomach pills, which he didn\u2019t explain, just offered with a sinister brow.<\/p>\n

The intrepid crew loaded up with the aforementioned bone saw, leeches, Dr. Rush\u2019s Bilious Pills and silver \u201cfriendship\u201d medallions. They donned their Captain Crunch-style epithets, loaded up a web-toed Newfoundland puppy, voluntold Clark\u2019s family slave, York, that he was coming along, and went to locate 39 more for the Corps of Discovery tour.<\/p>\n

York was born into slavery in the Clark home and was a childhood companion to Clark. York towered over everyone, broad and strong. The natives would dub him Buffalo Man, and they couldn\u2019t keep their hands off his black and muscled body, or his fluffy puppy.<\/p>\n

Told by superiors that a woman should be recruited next, Hale said explorers\u2019 initial reply was, \u201cNo one even tried out,\u201d but they still followed a lead from a French trapper to Sacajewea, a Native American woman stronger and shrewder than most men. She was pregnant with what would turn out to be the first baby of the Corps, a boy nicknamed Pomp.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo this diverse group of people of all races and backgrounds,\u201d proceeded along the river, noticing, naming and then barbecuing every single animal\u2014from coyotes to pelicans\u2014that they met on their journey. \u201cTwo hundred and thirty brand new species of animals and they barbecued every one of them,\u201d Hale recalled.<\/p>\n

This equated to six pounds of meat, per person, per day, with no fruits or veggies. This led to unbearable constipation.<\/p>\n

Dr. Rush\u2019s pills to the rescue with scorched earth style relief. Each popped a pill and headed off into the brush to relieve themselves in epic pain, glory and thunder.
\nYork, it was said, \u201cset off a mushroom cloud.\u201d<\/p>\n

Two hundred years later, explorers with metal detectors located giant, explosive piles of mercury in the Corps\u2019 former campsites. They determined the toxic dump was because the pills contained mercury, a deadly metal if ingested.<\/p>\n

As ugly as history has proven, Hale brightened the ending of his true tale noting that two white men, a French trapper, and otherwise powerless Americans, York and Sacajewea, were united and even shared voting rights.<\/p>\n

\u201cPomp couldn\u2019t vote though, dogs and babies are cute, but they are too dumb to vote. But, Pomp was the first baby to ever walk the trail.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Corps, Hale noted, was \u201can American history miracle.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Author Nathan Hale Might Just Have Found An Antidote For Our Kids\u2019 Literacy Malaise By Jennifer Liebrum Judging by the reaction of the toughest crowd any human can face\u2013middle schoolers\u2013Nathan Hale seems to have honed a remedy for the nation\u2019s reading and retention problem. As a New York Times best-selling author of historical fiction for […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":22167,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"tdm_status":"","tdm_grid_status":"","_pvb_checkbox_block_on_post":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[74,78,18,32],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-22166","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-education","8":"category-hailey","9":"category-news","10":"category-schools"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22166","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22166"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22166\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":22170,"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22166\/revisions\/22170"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/22167"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22166"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22166"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22166"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}