Cobbet alumna, now author, charms students

LYNN – Kat Black can still remember the first day she walked into the Cobbet Elementary School, starting sixth grade in a new building with new teachers and new friends.The former St. Mary’s Elementary School student was glad to be there, hoping for more excitement than the defunct Catholic Elementary School had to offer, but she couldn’t help but think that her new teacher was staring at her while she sat at her desk.”I wanted to see if he was looking at me, so I looked up over my desk and winked at him,” she said. “Then he winked back.”Black shared that story of her first day at school from the principals office at Cobbet Friday afternoon, where she met with the school’s first-year principal and her friend Brian Fay before heading to the auditorium at the Fecteau-Leary building to tell students about her new book, “Tormod: A Templar’s Apprentice.”Tormod is the first in what she hopes to be a four-book series with Scholastic Publishing, a mythical, yet historically accurate story of a young boy growing up in Scotland in the year 1307 when the Templar Knights were done in by the King of France.The story follows a teenage boy struggling to find his identity and cope with a supernatural ability to see bits and pieces of the future – of the end of the Templar Knights. He is dragged into an adventure with one of the knights, traveling across Europe, following clues from his vision, to prevent a horrific end.”I wanted to do a book for boys, for teens,” said Black, who has teenage boys of her own at home. “It is about struggling to accept the way that he is and trying to keep all of it under wraps.”Writing the story took more than imagination for Black, who researched every element of 12th century Scottish culture, even traveling to the country to research the Templar Knights. She said it was important to have an historically accurate piece, even though the basis for the story was fictional.”It is utterly set in history, it is a mix of fictional characters and actual history, so everything down to their outfits had to be correct,” she said. “The time line had to be correct, I had the publisher asking me ?is this accurate here’ and I had to show him that it was. It is kind of cool that this can get history to students in a way that isn’t boring.”Black is a Lynn native and still resides in the city now working full time as an author. She has a background in publishing, but says she has always been a storyteller from a young age.She and fellow Lynner Fay became friends through the years as both of their children participated in competitive swimming in the city. With literacy week at the Cobbet School taking place this month along with a Scholastic book fair, Fay thought it would be a perfect time for Black to come back to her old school, introduce her book and tell students what it takes to become a successful writer.”I thought, ?This is a great connection,’ and it would be really exciting to have a past student come back and highlight the book she just wrote,” said Fay. “The message I want to send to them is perseverance – if you start something, you finish it and if you try your best it will work.Although the book is written at a seventh grade level and has a few bloody scenes, Fay said that many of his students read well beyond a fifth grade reading level and would enjoy the new novel.Black is promoting her book and working on the sequel, due out next February, throughout this week. Her book is available for purchase at all major bookstores and is in print in several countries.