Professor at Ivy Tech in Columbus for business law, military veteran, real estate business owner and now local children’s book author Len Hauersperger, also known as Lenny Joe House, has two books published and he wants to spread the word on this future seven-part series, “The Adventures of Humperdinkerbopper.”
His stories follow the adventures of three birds — a penguin, a canary and another represented by a mix of different birds. During the first book, they go to a scout camp while in the second one, they take on a summer job out west. Right now, House is working on the third installment in the series, where he will set the boys in the North Pole.
“I like for each book to be different and the characters they meet are quite different, too,” House said.
These stories came to him by telling bedtime stories to his three children — Luke, Daniel and Maya — which are inspirations for the book’s characters and the journeys they take. He would get a handful of books from the library to read to his kids every night, but when the time got away from him and he forgot to grab some, he would have to make up stories.
“It was a little bit of pressure at the time too, because they did not want to go to sleep without a story,” House said with a laugh, “but once they got their story, they were good to go.”
Within the short window of time that a children’s book is able to tell its story, House aims to “inspire children and adults alike to step out of their comfort zone, conquer their fears and take some risks.”
House gave his youngest son Luke, 22, credit for co-writing and editing the stories along with helpful criticism to help steer him on the right path. On the illustration side, he has also received help from Kay Fox and Silas Cheo, both of whom teach classes at the Southern Indiana Center for the Arts aka SICA.
The book creation process varies. House can find himself in the evening or night, enjoying his downtime pulling up a document on his computer and just typing away. Other times, he has the creative spark come to him unexpectedly, catapulting him into a project. House compared it to writing a song — sometimes, the music comes first and other times, the lyrics do.
No matter how he gets going, the hardest part to create is the introduction.
“Something exciting needs to happen to kind of build the story,” he said.
In college, House gained his appreciation for writing, but his favorite part of the book-making process is drawing. He wants to push even further and is looking into how to animate. With how much of a learning curve animating would be, House said he would like to take a class about it.
He has sold more than 100 copies with little advertising but would love to get more of his stories out there. His books can be found through Amazon and Barnes & Noble. The Jackson County Visitor Center holds a few copies as well.
House said he had been invited to a middle school before to talk about his stories and would love to get the opportunity again. For any schools interested in scheduling an author’s visit, he can be contacted by email: [email protected]