PARIS – Popular children’s author and illustrator Chris Van Dusen kicked off the town’s library card drive Wednesday with a colorful and informative workshop for students at the Paris Elementary School.

“It was awesome,” said fourth-grade student Katelyn Campbell after the hour-long presentation that was punctuated by numerous oohs and aahs from the children.

“We’re trying to get kids thinking about library cards and how much fun reading is,” said Paris Library Director Michael Dignan. The library sponsored the visit by the author and illustrator of the popular “Mr. Magee” books and illustrator of the “Mercy Watson” series by Kate DiCamillo as a way to promote a library card drive among the students.

Van Dusen, a Maine native who lives in Camden, showed the students a number of items he has illustrated including the lobster on the state of Maine license plate, various L.L. Bean catalogs and his popular books.

He then described the process of illustrating a book, including his first book “Down to the Sea with Mr. Magee,” which he said took nine years to complete. It began as a longtime desire to paint a boat in a tree and then to write a story around that theme.

“The hardest part of my job is to make things look the same page-to-page,” Van Dusen said.

He added that he was inspired and is still inspired by the Dr. Seuss books, which he read as a youngster, and whose influence can be seen in some of his illustrations.

Dignan said all children at the elementary school have received an application to fill out for a library card. All students who sign up will receive a book bag, a bookmark and a library card if they don’t already have one. They will also be eligible for one of three drawings over the next few weeks for a copy of “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows,” by J.K. Rowling.

Dignan said it is impossible to know how many students do not have library cards, but he said it is a safe guess that if the state average is 51 percent and 2,700 out of about 5,000 Paris residents have library cards, probably about half the students do not have cards.

The library card drive will get the kids set for the library’s summer reading program that Dignan said will feature the theme of sleuthing and mystery-solving.

Van Dusen said it was children who inspired him to write the second in the series of Mr. Magee books called “A Camping Spree with Mr. Magee.”

“I wasn’t going to write another book, but so many kids asked me what my next book would be about,” he explained.

“I enjoyed it. It was really a good experience,” said fourth-grade student Makayla Martin, who also said her favorite part was when Van Dusen drew Mr. Magee’s dog, Dee, on a large easel.