Patty Loew:
Our next report features another winner, a young storyteller. Wisconsin Public Television has aired Reading Rainbow since 1983. Last August, the series left the air, but not before inspiring lots of kids to read books and some to write. That's how "In Wisconsin" reporter Art Hackett found an award-winning author from Portage.

Woman:
And this is one of our studios and these people are all here for you.

Art Hackett:
8-year-old Abigail Helser of Portage has been a fan of Reading Rainbow for years.

Dawn Helser:
Abby has two older siblings that are in their 20s and they watched Reading Rainbow and when Abby got to be old enough to start getting interested, my older kids encouraged me to make sure Abby watched it. So it was a regular event in the afternoon.

Theme song:
Take a look, it's in a book, a reading rainbow!

Art Hackett:
Reading Rainbow began as a summertime series to encourage children to read during their vacation. Later on, the show suggests kids try their hand at creating their own storybooks.

Lavar Burton:
It's a chance for everyone in kindergarten through 3rd grade to create your very own story and win some great prizes.

Art Hackett:
When Abigail was in 1st grade, that's what she did.

Abigail Helser:
I only entered one other story and that is called “The Polka Dotted Umbrella.” That was two years ago and last year I didn't enter.

Art Hackett:
Abby's first effort won an “outstanding story” certificate.   

Abigail Helser:
It pretty much started right about here, a fictional story about a girl and she uses her umbrella for everything. After a big rain, she floats across a pond in it and she sleeps with it. She does pretty much everything with it.   

Art Hackett:
As Abby said, it was fictional.

Abigail Helser:
I actually had a dream, and that was the dream.

Art Hackett:
Two years later, as a 3rd grader, Abigail tried again, this time with a true story, a story that reads like a script for another PBS series, that would be “History Detectives.” “Finding Grandpa” is the story of her father's search for details of his father's experience during World War II.

Abigail Helser:
There's Grandpa Bernie.

Art Hackett:
Bernie Helser grew up on a dairy farm in Shawano County. Abby never knew her grandfather. Her father never had a chance to hear his father's stories.

Abigail Helser:
Dad never really knew his dad.

Art Hackett:
Bernie Helser suffered a stroke while Chris was still young.

Chris Helser:
I had always had the crew photograph of my father's.

Art Hackett:
Chris Helser said his memory of his father was kept alive by this photograph.

Chris Helser:
And in fact it's up in my office. It's hanging up there.

Abigail Helser:
Dad was trying to track down someone who knew Grandpa during the war. So he found something in an old letter that one of the crew members had sent to my grandma. Here is a copy of the letter that Dad found.

Art Hackett:
The book is the story of how that letter led Chris Helser to another crew member, Marvin King, who lives in Pennsylvania.

Abigail Helser:
Then later we flew out and we met him. When we were about to leave, he said, “Would you please allow me to adopt you as my granddaughter?” I said yes. And we're still very close to Grandpa Marvin.

Abigail Helser:
This was Grandpa Marvin and Grandpa Bernie right there.   

Art Hackett:
Her visit to Grandpa Marvin happened just as she was trying to decide on a story to enter in the contest.   

Art Hackett:
Did he know you were working on this?   

Abigail Helser:
Well, we asked his permission to use his name in the book, and he said that he would be honored just to have his name mentioned. But he thought that it was all about Grandpa Bernie and Dad. But he didn't quite realize that it was all about him. And so he knew a little bit that he was going to be in it.

Art Hackett:
So now Abby has two grandpas. This summer, she got a phone call saying her book was the national 3rd grade 1st place award winner from among more than 35,000 entries from across the country.

Art Hackett:
Do you remember what happened when you heard you won 1st place?

Abigail Helser:
I said, oh, wow, because I was pretty much speechless.

Dawn Helser:
We're just very pleased to see that the book has gotten such wonderful national attention because our hope and expectation is that as other people read it, they will think about those people in their lives that maybe they could make contact with, touch a little more deeply, develop a relationship with.   

Art Hackett:
Abby and her mom got to come to our studios, hear the staff sing the Reading Rainbow theme song, collect some prizes and see her book's cover enshrined in icing on a cake. But there is more to the story. About the time Abby won the award, she found out she would be moving. Her father got a job at a NASA research center in Maryland. She's leaving her home in Portage, but her new home will put her closer to Grandpa Marvin.   

Patty Loew:
And that's a fitting end to Abigail's story.