{"id":116148,"date":"2025-08-03T17:38:11","date_gmt":"2025-08-03T17:38:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/116148\/"},"modified":"2025-08-03T17:38:11","modified_gmt":"2025-08-03T17:38:11","slug":"carson-high-graduates-novel-honors-war-heroes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/116148\/","title":{"rendered":"Carson High graduate’s novel honors war heroes"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"The<\/a><\/p>\n

\n The Carson High School library has a copy Scott Grange\u2019s book, \u201cFlying Lessons,\u201d in its collection. Grange, who graduated from Carson High School, published the book in April 2024.
Dan Davis\/Carson City School District<\/p>\n

Former Washoe County history teacher Scott Grange\u2019s grandfather served as a B-24 pilot in World War II. He never discussed it much with his wife or sister. He finally began sharing his war experiences when Grange asked about being one of the \u201cGreatest Generation\u201d left to tell his story.<\/p>\n

Grange decided he needed to put parts of his grandfather\u2019s story into a fictional storyline celebrating a decorated pilot and wartime hero who lives through the tragedies of life and love.<\/p>\n

Grange, a 1989 Carson High School graduate, former teacher and administrator for 30 years and now an Illinois resident, has retired and published his first novel \u201cFlying Lessons\u201d in April 2024.<\/p>\n

\u201cI really looked at the story and handwritten notes and started forming a story that would both my grandparents proud,\u201d Grange said. \u201cI came back with stories that no human being should ever see. \u2026 I put it on Amazon and it\u2019s fun because there are some Easter eggs from my family.\u201d<\/p>\n

After retirement, Grange began focusing on his creative writing efforts. Through inspiration of his grandfather, the story began coming together.<\/p>\n

\u201cFlying Lessons\u201d focuses on the main character Michael Southern who has experienced personal and professional dead ends in life and is tasked with caring for his centenarian grandfather. Southern peruses his grandfather\u2019s items after his death and prepares to sell his house. He stumbles upon memories and items on his grandfather\u2019s past as a war hero and decides to discover more about who he was. Southern travels to Normandy and confronts the realism about wartime and regret.<\/p>\n

Grange\u2019s book, which he calls a modern-day thriller, entwines a contemporary timeline in 2023 with events from D-Day in 1944 based on his own fascination with his family\u2019s history.<\/p>\n

The challenge was to avoid making it sound like an academic lecture according to feedback from his sister. Grange changed some of his literary strategy to keep the reader from being bogged down in details and still honor the soldiers who served at the time, he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWith one of the really bad American bombing raids that happened in Germany prior to the novel, I want my readers to know what some of these people went through,\u201d Grange said. \u201cThey led extraordinary lives.\u201d<\/p>\n

It also deals with the trauma and guilt many servicemembers experienced if they returned home, Grange said.<\/p>\n

\u201c(My grandfather) had two full crews, and he was the only one that lived,\u201d Grange said. \u201cHe had some stuff that he repressed. He passed away a couple of years ago. He was one of the few of the Greatest Generation.\u201d<\/p>\n

As a teenager starting to explore his writing interests, Grange took writing classes from his mentor David Eddings, who showed him he could make his craft more than a hobby. Grange used these remarks to refine \u201cFlying Lessons\u201d and his process as an author.<\/p>\n

\u201cI have comments handwritten and typed from those days, and I still look at those comments that told me to keep writing and keep at what I was doing,\u201d he said. \u201cI loved that.\u201d<\/p>\n

Grange has sold more than 100 copies of his book in small shops in Illinois but only recently considered trying to market it in his native Northern Nevada. He still has family in the area.<\/p>\n

\u201cJust because we moved out of the area doesn\u2019t mean we\u2019re not Nevadans,\u201d he said. \u201cWe still love the mountains, and we still love Tahoe. \u2026 It\u2019s just that set of values, and it doesn\u2019t mean we\u2019ve lost our appreciation for the beauty in what was the town where I grew up in Carson and Reno and Sparks. I don\u2019t think you ever lose who you are and how you were and where it was.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cFlying Lessons\u201d is available on Amazon, and students and staff have access to a copy in the Carson High School library.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Carson High School library has a copy Scott Grange\u2019s book, \u201cFlying Lessons,\u201d in its collection. Grange, who…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":116149,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[1022,171,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-116148","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-books","8":"tag-books","9":"tag-entertainment","10":"tag-united-states","11":"tag-unitedstates","12":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/114966056556915900","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/116148","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=116148"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/116148\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/116149"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=116148"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=116148"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=116148"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}