EAST LONGMEADOW – Author Christina Uss came to Mapleshade Elementary School in East Longmeadow on June 5 to share with students stories of her experience biking across the U.S., as well as her new book, “The Adventures of a Girl Called Bicycle.”

Nearly 20 years ago, Uss rode her bicycle with a team of peers across the country, from Washington D.C. to San Francisco, CA. It took her seven weeks to complete the trip.

Uss was once a writer for various publications, and now, years later, she’s published her first book.

“My husband came to me and said, “You know what? You’re going to write a book one day. It’s going to be called ‘The Adventures of a Girl Called Bicycle.’ And I thought, wow – I love that, and immediately I started writing,” Uss said.

Uss noted that she started writing the book 10 years ago, and as of June 5, it was published and officially released to the public for purchase. She wanted to be sure that she had a publisher as opposed to self-publishing because she thought that a publisher could promote the book to be the best it could be.

The author approached Mapleshade and asked for the opportunity to talk to students about the United States’ geography by using a series of stories about the places she traveled to help students remember what the states look like. In addition, inspired by her book, which revolves around a 12-year-old girl who decides to bike across the U.S. through the same states Uss biked through herself, students at Mapleshade had a ‘bike to school day’ where over 70 students rode their bikes to school.

Students piled into the Mapleshade cafeteria to learn from Uss’ “Geography Comes Alive” presentation. Uss explained her book is geared toward ages 8 to 12, and that the character in her book travels through Washington D.C., Virginia, Kentucky, Illinois, Missouri, Kansas, Colorado, Utah, Nevada and California. She wanted to write about what she experienced, and knowing that Mapleshade students learned about the geography of the United States over the past year, she decided to teach the students what each state looked like by connecting it with a story.

“It’s hard work to memorize all 50 states, but it’s easier if there’s a story to go with it,” Uss told the students.

First on her slide, Uss pulled up a photo of Washington D.C. She told two stories to the students, one involving a “mostly silent monastery” where monks were required to be “mostly silent.” The other story involved the organization Habitat for Humanity where a home was being built for someone less fortunate. Students were then instructed to, by a show of hands, decide which story they believed to be true.

Moving onto Virginia, Uss showed the students an outline of the state, explaining how it is known for being “bumpy on top but straight on the bottom.” Uss continued, explaining her two stories. One, as she was biking through Virginia she drove up to a home that had a sign which read, “home of the cookie lady.” The owner of the home had every type of cookie imaginable, and she offered them to bikers who rode past her home.

The second story Uss shared about Virginia was a tale of camping on the Manassas Battleground, which was the location of two major American Civil War battles. In the story, she explained that when camping overnight she had a ghost experience from a former soldier, and when she woke up, she wasn’t sure if it had been real or simply a dream.

While most students didn’t believe the cookie lady tale, to their surprise, the cookie lady, known as June Curry, was real.

Uss continued for roughly 45 minutes sharing stories with students and teaching them about the states as she went along. At the end of the presentation, students had the opportunity to ask Uss questions.

Spurred by the questions, Uss shared that her favorite state out of all that she visited on her bike trip was Missouri. She explained that she would ride roughly 60 to 70 miles each day, and occasionally, a day with 100 miles traveled. In addition to her cross-country trip, Uss rode her bike with one friend from Canada to Mexico along the Pacific coast.

“The funny thing is, once we were going, we didn’t want to take stops,” Uss said after a student asked her whether or not she and her group made a lot of pit-stops on their trip from D.C. to California.

Uss is an author, a mother of two and also works at Longmeadow’s Storrs Library. She is already working on her second book, which has been purchased, called “The Colossus of Roads” which will be released in 2020.