The Shadow
Any elementary school student can tell you that the last of the dinosaurs died out 65 million years before the first Christmas was celebrated.
Even so, Chuck Almarez prefers his Christmas holiday to have a touch of the prehistoric.
Almarez, a well-known local photographer, has penned “Dino Star: A Prehistoric Christmas Tale,” a storybook for young children.
It was an idea that has been stirring around inside Chuck’s head for quite a while.
“When the kids were young, before they were big enough to go to the movies, we went and saw ‘Jaws’ and ‘E.T.’ so they were kind of old hat for us,” Almarez said. “But I remember the day we got ‘Jaws’ and ‘Jurassic Park’ on VHS. We were going to get pizza and set down with the kids and watch them.”
The reaction of the young Almarez children, Casey and Carly, surprised their dad and their mom, Carol.
“The kids were under the pillows,” he recalled with a laugh. “It became a real emotional thing with them. Because we’d watched it so many times, we never gave it a thought.”
It was during Chuck’s long daily commute to Roanoke for work in the wee hours of the morning that inspiration struck for a way to make the prehistoric monsters of Jurassic Park less scary for his children.
“I was in Toastmasters and we were supposed to give a speech about emotion,” he explained. “I started thinking about that little incident with the kids and the pillows.
“I don’t know where that first line came from, but that’s when it came to me. ‘Once long ago, when the world was young and the primal soup still bubbled…’ That was the first thing that come up and it kind of set the flow for the whole thing,” he said.
Chuck would spend the next few months figuring out what kind of story he was telling.
“Over a period of weeks and months, I kept adding little bits to it. I never knew where it was going and I certainly didn’t think it was going to be a Christmas story,” he said.
It turned into a pre-historic Christmas “myth” of sorts that explains how dinosaurs left the Earth and gave up their “life-sparks” to become the stars in the heavens.
Chuck shared the story with his young children when he finished it 20 years ago, but it wasn’t until just recently that he even thought of publishing it.
“It was about a year ago, I sent a copy to a friend of mine who was a librarian and an avid reader. She said I really should get it published, if just for myself, so I did.”
The first copies, of course, went to his children, who are now fully grown. Even though his children are beyond the age of bed time stories, Chuck hopes that “Dino Star” will continue to take part in that nocturnal tradition.
“‘Dino Star’ is intended as a ‘share’ book, one that is ideally read aloud,” he wrote in the Author’s Note. “I thought the target market would be kids, but I was wrong.
The more I wrote, edited and re-read the story, the more I realized it’s really intended for parents and grandparents.
“We’re the ones who will benefit and get joy from reading and explaining the words and story to our kids and grandkids,” he added.
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“Dino Star: A Pre-Historic Christmas Tale” is available online at Amazon.com or locally at The Club Car, Heirlooms Cafe, Old Forge Coffee Company and Fire and Light Gallery.
