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KIRKSVILLE, MISSOURI -- Children’s author Ruth Ann Ridgeway stopped by the KTVO studio for ‘Good Morning Heartland’ to discuss her new release ‘Mahpiya’s Gift.’

She hosts a book-signing at the Putnam County Library in Unionville, Dec 30, from 2 – 4 p.m.

Published by the Strategic Book Group, the classic Native American story is a tale of courage. A mother asks her 9-year-old son Mahpiya to bring food back for his starving Native American tribe.

“Mahpiya wants desperately to do as his mother has asked, only he gets a little sidetracked, as a boy that age tends to do,” said Ridgeway.

After some obstacles and a near-death experience, Mahpiya returns to the village with a gift to the tribe. Mahpiya shows it doesn’t take the biggest or strongest to succeed, only the bravest.

Ridgeway grew up in Putnam County and still maintains her home there, but for the past 17 years, she has traveled to South Dakota every school year to teach the Native American children on the Pine Ridge Reservation.

What provoked her to travel to South Dakota and write this book?

“Everybody always says they have a calling to do something,” said Ridgeway. “I had a calling to do this. I had been on vacation and there were a lot of children standing along the side of the road, trying to be anywhere but where they were at, and I realized that they had a need; they had a need to realize a dream, find their dream and realize it.”

What does she want people, both young and old, to take from this story?

“Fortitude,” said Ridgeway. “Whenever you've got a dream, no matter what other things you've got going on in your life, hold onto your dream; work for it. I was in the 3rd grade when I first decided I wanted to be a writer. Well, I'm 56 now and I'm a writer.”

Ridgeway wrote the tale after her students consistently asked her to tell them a story. They eventually asked her to turn that story into a book, and Ridgeway not only wrote the book, she also illustrated it.

“Mahpiya’s Gift” can be purchased at Barnes and Noble, as well as Hastings.