Justin Matott

by Anthonette Klinkerman

The first assembly of the school year at Buffalo Ridge Elementary illustrated why students love assemblies. Author Justin Matott was invited by the Buffalo Ridge Educational Alliance (BREA) assembly organizer Christina McDonald to come to the school in September and address the character education topic of bullying.

Matott, a former Rocky Mountain News reporter, attended a Catholic school for a better part of his education. He skipped from first grade to fourth grade because of his intelligence, and his small stature made him an easy target for bullies. Thick glasses and an eye patch to correct a lazy eye added to his misery, and Matott found himself alone every day, hiding in the back of the playground to eat his lunch by himself.

One day the school bully found Matott and beat him up, knocking out a tooth. His teacher demanded to know what happened, and Matott found he could not tattle on the bully out of fear. He stated instead that he had tripped.

The silence in the BRE school gym at the end of his story of the bully was palpable. Matott said, “No one should feel that alone every day. Not in this school, not anywhere.” He recalled how he looked into the mirror after the beating and decided that he no longer liked even himself.

His father knew something was wrong, and Matott told him, although claiming the bullying was happening “to a friend”. What his father told him next was the turning point in his life. “You tell the best scary stories I’ve ever heard,” said his father, who explained how much Matott had scared his older brother when the family had gone camping.

“That night the power shifted,” he smiled. His “big, hairy, stinky” brother stopped picking on him after Matott revived his “Man in the Woods” story from the camping trip.

He regaled the younger students with stories of his narcoleptic cat featured in his upcoming book “Front Flip Flop.” A master of sound effects and funny voices, Matott had the students shrieking with laughter. His book titles include his first published, Go Ask Mom, as well as Oliver Kringle, a story about Santa’s bus-driving brother.

He wrote a book entitled “When I Was a Boy I Dreamed,” which prompted him to write the follow-up “When I Was a Girl I Dreamed.” This was quite perplexing to a little girl in one of his audiences who insisted, “You’re not a girl.”

Matott told the students that writers write about what they know, and when they don’t know they go and ask questions so they can then write about it.

“A Boy I Knew Once” recounts his days of dealing with bullies by using his own experiences. Matott, a Highlands Ranch resident, has 15 published books, including two collections of poems, “Chocolate Covered Frog Legs,” and “There’s a Fly in my Toast.”