A Superhero . . . in Person: Dav Pilkey’s Remarkable Visit and Message

Abstract

On Thursday, April 14, 2018, I received an early morning text from an old friend. It said:

Just wanted to share the below text with you. It came from my daughter, whose son was at the Dav Pilkey celebration yesterday . . . He is in the second grade and suffers from apraxia and dyslexia and is struggling to read. My daughter sent this to our family’s group text:“Today Tyler got to listen to Dav Pilkey [author of Captain Underpants] speak at USM [the University of Southern Mississippi]. He got a signed book. I know it’s the excitement of meeting him but tonight was the first time he picked up a book to read ‘just because.’ He read the whole first chapter.”Sometimes we forget that lives can be changed through the work we do. Thanks for bringing Dave [sic] Pilkey to Hattiesburg!

That’s right. Author Dav Pilkey came to Hattiesburg, Mississippi, and lives were changed. He was the honoree at the fifty-first Fay B. Kaigler Children’s Book Festival, April 11–13, 2018, and he is the fiftieth individual to receive the silver medallion from USM. The first was Lois Lenski in 1969, so this tradition has a remarkable history.