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Children's book author and illustrator Don Tate speaks to nearly 100 students and their parents Wednesday at Lea Ledger Auditorium in Copperas Cove. Tate told the children about his life growing up and not to give up on their dreams.
Children's book author and illustrator Don Tate speaks to nearly 100 students and their parents Wednesday at Lea Ledger Auditorium in Copperas Cove. Tate told the children about his life growing up and not to give up on their dreams.
Children's book author and illustrator Don Tate, left, "solves" a puzzle and creates a picture from two random shapes and figures that Killeen sixth grader Jael Cox, right, placed on his drawing pad as Tate spoke to students at Copperas Cove's Lea Ledger Auditorium.
Children's book author and illustrator Don Tate speaks to nearly 100 students and their parents Wednesday at Lea Ledger Auditorium in Copperas Cove. Tate told the children about his life growing up and not to give up on their dreams.
Children's book author and illustrator Don Tate speaks to nearly 100 students and their parents Wednesday at Lea Ledger Auditorium in Copperas Cove. Tate told the children about his life growing up and not to give up on their dreams.
Children's book author and illustrator Don Tate, left, "solves" a puzzle and creates a picture from two random shapes and figures that Killeen sixth grader Jael Cox, right, placed on his drawing pad as Tate spoke to students at Copperas Cove's Lea Ledger Auditorium.
COPPERAS COVE — An Austin-based children’s book author and illustrator, Don Tate, 58, inspired a Killeen middle schooler during his talk to children at Copperas Cove’s Lea Ledger Auditorium last week.
Tate selected Jael Cox, an Eastern Hills Middle School student, to come on stage with him to help during his presentation. Tate instructed Cox to draw a couple of random shapes or figures and he would “solve” the picture puzzle and draw a picture using the shapes she drew in the picture.
Cox drew a squiggly line and the number three.
What did the youngster think Tate would draw with it?
“I thought a snake and a flower,” Cox said.
She was partially correct. Tate did indeed draw a flower from the “three,” but it was rather an adornment on the hat of a lady that Tate drew the face of. Cox’s squiggly line became the brim of the hat.
After completing the picture, Tate signed it and gave Cox the picture.
“She’s been drawing since she was about 3 or 4 years old as well,” said Jesse Cox, the father of Jael Cox. “I mean, the thing that stuck out to me the most was about him saying that he’s practiced every day since he was 3 or 4 years old, which is something that we’ve mentioned a lot.
The Coxes came from Killeen to Copperas Cove that night because Jesse’s wife works in the district.
“There have been studies and stuff that have shown that it takes 10 years of dedicated practice to get good at your craft,” Jesse Cox said.
Tate spent all week meeting with upper-level elementary students at Copperas Cove ISD, telling his life story and drawing portraits of them.
“I just think it is always so exciting when I get an opportunity to speak to kids, because I think that it’s so important to get them excited about reading, get them excited about literature,” Tate said after the event.
“When I was a kid, authors were people on the other side of the world, or you saw their books in the library, but you didn’t actually know them as human beings. So when I get an opportunity to come out and actually be there in person and shake their hands, I hope that it’ll be an experience that they can carry with them through a lifetime.”
During his talk, Tate told the children and their parents that he began drawing when he was about 3 years old and he has done it nearly every day since.
For those in the audience who spoke up and told him they hoped to be an illustrator when they grow up, he gently told them that it is a long process, where they will be met with a lot of rejection and the answer “no” — just like he did.
But he encouraged them to never give up on their dreams and to continue to pursue it. Tate even told one of the children that he believed that one day, he would be in the audience listening to the student’s story of how he became an illustrator.
The book Tate most recently illustrated, “Swish! The Slam-Dunking, Alley-Ooping, High-Flying Harlem Globetrotters” was given a Texas Bluebonnet Award for 2022-2023 by the Texas Library Association.
According to the TLA website, the Bluebonnet Award is “A unique program that encourages reading for pleasure for students in grades 3 - 6.”
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