Messner

SARANAC LAKE — Children’s book author Kate Messner visited the Saranac Lake Middle School library Monday to talk to kids about reading, writing and being an author.

Messner, who lives on Lake Champlain, was promoting her latest book, “The Exact Location of Home.” The novel, which is for third- to seventh-grade level readers, is a companion to an earlier book, the award-winning “The Brilliant Fall of Gianna Z.” In it, Gianna’s friend Zig sets out to find his father using a mobile GPS unit.

Messner spoke with a group of seventh-grade students who had read the first seven chapters of the new book. Asked what they learned from her visit, students responded as follows, according to school librarian Jill Kennedy:

“I never knew that there were so many drafts involved with writing books,” Tristanna Hurteau said.

“She uses her family and close friends in her writing,” Owen Maiore said. “She will take traits from them and turn those traits into a character.”

Said Luke Blaum, referring to one of her books that was inspired by the 2015 prison break in Dannemora, “She talks to people and learns new things to write her books. For example, with ‘Breakout’ she talked to people who were experiencing a jail breakout. She talked to people to see what it was like.”