Bend author and artist highlight the outdoors in new children's book

Bend author Lucas Alberg’s experiences camping throughout the High Desert with his young family helped provide some inspiration for his new children’s book, “Goodnight Great Outdoors,” which was released nationally on Tuesday by Adventure Publications. Megan Marie Myers, also of Bend, produced the illustrations in the book.

“It’s such a bonding experience for any family, right?” Alberg said of camping with his kids. “I think that’s one thing that inspired me to write it, too, because I’ve had that bonding experience with my family, and with my kids. It was something my wife and I did before kids, and now to be able to do that with kids, it’s such a nice bonding experience.”

The rest of the inspiration he required came from the renowned children’s book “Goodnight Moon,” written in 1947 by Margaret Wise Brown. Alberg, 42, whose first book was “Trail Running Bend and Central Oregon,” released regionally in 2016, wanted to put an outdoors spin on “Goodnight Moon,” the classic nighttime read that has helped send generations of children to peaceful slumbers.

Alberg’s day job is as the senior brand communications manager for Hydro Flask, and his wife Rae Alberg is the founder and teacher at Bend Forest School, a nature immersion and early education program. They have two children: a son Loren, 5, and daughter Birdie, 4.

“I personally love just the rhyme and the lilt of Margaret Wise Brown’s original text,” Lucas Alberg said of “Goodnight Moon.” “And being an outdoorsman and just loving the outdoors, and working in the outdoor industry, too … we’re just an outdoor family. So I kind of wanted to pay tribute I guess to that original book, but through the vein of the outdoors. That was the goal. There’s no pretending it’s not inspired by that book. It’s very analogous in cadence and such to that book, and that was intentional just because I think that book is so wonderful. But I did want to put an outdoor spin on it.”

Alberg — who was born and raised in Kansas and has lived in Bend for the past 11 years and the Pacific Northwest for more than 20 years — said he and his family have camped frequently over the past year during the COVID-19 pandemic, often camping locally at dispersed areas throughout the Deschutes National Forest, including forest roads near the Metolius River.

“My kids love camping,” Alberg said. “This past year with COVID, we camped more and more. That was one silver lining. We camped more locally, just dispersed camping back on forest roads and such.”

Marie Myers said the book is ideal to bring on camping trips.

“That would be really fun to be reading this story to your kids in your tent or camper as you’re going to sleep,” she said.

Aside from providing some nighttime reading on camping trips or just at home, Alberg wanted to pay tribute to “Goodnight Moon,” one of the first books he and Rae read to their children.

“There’s a ton of ‘Goodnight’ spinoff books, but one thing I realized was that none of them really did pay tribute or were an homage as far as the text,” Alberg said. “For me, that was one thing I really wanted to do. It’s inspired by that classic book, but it also pays tribute to it.”

When Alberg received his advance copy of “Goodnight Great Outdoors,” Loren, who is in kindergarten and just getting started in reading, read his father’s name on the cover.

“That was a pretty cool moment,” Alberg said.

After writing the book and li erg approached Marie Myers for the illustrations. Born and raised in Medford, Myers, 37, has lived in Bend for six years and paints original artwork and designs her own line of greeting cards, fine art prints and calendars. An avid trail runner like Alberg, she owned his trail running book and had worked with him previously on a project for Hydro Flask.

“I read his manuscript,” said Marie Myers. “I just really loved the cadence and the word choice. I thought it was really pretty.”

And she was extra motivated by the outdoors angle, as her favorite projects are inspired by a connection to nature.

“That was the most exciting part,” Marie Myers said. “It was a project completely aligned with my personal work and what I enjoy most. It felt natural. It was a really easy project to say yes to.”

Alberg’s process for writing “Goodnight Great Outdoors” was in stark contrast to his process for writing “Trail Running Bend and Central Oregon.” Obviously, they are much different books, but the trail running book took years — researching, running and writing. The children’s book? Alberg said he wrote it in just a few hours.

“I whipped it out in an evening in all honesty, and there was very little refinement or editing,” Alberg said. “And then I pitched it and they were like, ‘Yeah, this is great.’ It’s funny how that works. You work and work and work on something and don’t get any bites. Then something else you don’t work on as much, people love it.”