“It’s really special to be able to write something that he enjoys, and to teach kids about sports,” Kunkel said.

So far, Kunkel has written six easy reader books about Naz the Sports Cat. Each Naz story features a different sport, including volleyball, soccer and football. Along the way, Naz learns about the importance of practicing sports skills, and being a good teammate.

Kunkel told students that the idea to write books for kids came from his children.

“Ryett is kind of the inspiration for writing these books,” he said.

Photo by Deb Gau Justin Kunkel said his son Ryett was a big part of the inspiration behind his series of books. Kunkel said he started writing them after looking for sports books Ryett might enjoy.

Kunkel was looking for sports books that Ryett might like to read. He also got ideas for different sports in the stories from Ryett and his sister Wrenley.

During his visit to Park Side, Kunkel read some of his books, like the football story “Naz the Cat and the Big Fat Block.” In the story, Naz the cat learns that, even though he’s not the one scoring touchdowns, he can still make a difference for his football team on the offensive line.

Some of the students Kunkel visited with on Friday were excited to see him.

“Thank you for writing those books! We read one of them,” one first grader said, as the class took their seats.

The kids had questions for Kunkel about how he wrote and designed the books. He said he started writing last year, and used graphic design programs like Photoshop and Canva to design the book pages.

Telling a story starts with a character, and a problem the character needs to solve, Kunkel told students.

“It took a really long time” to write the stories, Kunkel said. He didn’t just have to come up with an idea. He also had to write the stories, and keep re-reading them and making changes.

“Why are the pictures black and white?” one student asked.

Kunkel said he chose to make the inside pages of the books black-and-white, so kids could fill in the illustrations with their own sports team colors. On the book covers, Naz the Sports Cat wears orange, white and black to go along with the Marshall Tigers team colors, he said.

Kunkel told students that he donated some copies of his books to the school library.