GLASGOW — Twelve lucky students at Red Cross Elementary ate lunch with one of their favorite “spooky” writers on Monday.

Author Johnathan Rand, 44, of Topinabee, Mich., visited with students and teachers at the school during a seven-week book tour he is conducting through the state.

The creator of the series “American Chillers,” “Michigan Chillers,” “The Adventure Club” and “Freddie Fernortner — Fearless First Grader” has been writing children’s books for 10 years, he said.

Rand is a pseudonym used by Christopher Knight, who has written 66 books so far. His first book, “Mayhem on Mackinac Island,” was self-published in March 2000.

Knight said writing wasn’t his first career choice. He wanted to get a job working with animals or outdoors. While attending college, he began working at a radio station where he wrote news stories and commercials and discovered that he loved writing. He worked in radio for 15 years before becoming a successful author of books for children and young adults.

Knight doesn’t have children of his own, but he and his wife, Deirdre, have three dogs at home, all labradors rescued from the animal shelter, Lily Munster, Scooby-Boo and Spooky Dude.

“They’re our babies,” he said.

The author spends an average of 200 days a year traveling to schools in different states. He continues to write books on the road, completing 10 to 12 books a year, he said.

“I wouldn’t be able to do it without my laptop, that’s for sure,” he said.

Knight’s current tour will end just before the holidays. He will spend the rest of the month in Kentucky then travel to Virginia and California before finishing up.

“I’ll make it home just before Thanksgiving,” he said.

Knight said he loves to travel and that his wife gets to join him on the road sometimes, but when school ends each spring, so do the trips.

“I like the travel aspect of it, but in the summertime we don’t travel at all. I kind of hit the brakes right at the end of the school year and we stay the entire summer at our home in northern Michigan, which is like Mayberry R.F.D.,” he said.

But during the school year, Knight says he visits about 200 schools in his travels.

The students at Red Cross earned the honor of eating with the author Monday through their own writings. The children each wrote a letter and school librarian Amy Shipley picked the best ones.

“They had to write letters to me as to why they should be chosen to eat lunch with our guest today,” she said.

As the students joined Knight at a table in the library for lunch, one of them, Cody Graves, 9, told him, “Your books are the only books I’ve read this year so far.”

The children took turns asking the author questions while they ate, keeping up an ongoing dialogue.

“How much money do you spend flying?” — “A lot.”

“Have you actually written more books than you’ve published?” — “Yes.”

“Why is your hair in a ponytail?”— “Because it looks really messy if it’s not, so I keep it in a ponytail. I’ve had long hair for a long time.”

“Where do you get your Googly Glasses?” — “They’re for sale at my store (Chillermania, which sells only his books is in Indian River, Mich., near his home).”

“Are you going to keep writing for the rest of your life?” — “Yep, I am.”

“How do you research for stories in different states?” — “I go there.”

“Is there a number of books you actually want to achieve, to get to?” — “I want to finish the ‘American Chillers’ by writing a book about every single state, so I’ve still got a little ways to go there.”

Knight’s American Chiller about the state, “Kentucky Komodo Dragons,” was of particular interest to the students, of course. The author told them with tongue firmly in cheek that it was a “true story.”

Knight was asked about his future plans as well and he said he will always write because of the positive feedback he gets from readers.

“It’s so rewarding to me to hear from either a teacher or a parent that their child or their student wasn’t a reader, but now they are reading because of some of these books,” he said. “You know it’s nice to be able to do this and earn a living, but to hear that and know that what I’m doing is making a difference that’s the best paycheck you can possibly get.”

Knight told the following story that had particular impact with him.

“I got an e-mail once and it literally brought tears to my eyes and she said, ‘You’re my favorite author and I had never read a book before and your book was the first one I ever read cover to cover and then she said, ‘Let me explain something. My name is Linda and I’m 52 years old and I have a learning disability and when I was growing up they didn’t know that and then when they found out I had a learning disability they took books away from me because they told me I was too dumb to read and I would never learn. And recently I met some friends and they showed me one of your books and it was the first book she had ever read at 52 years old. And then I had a chance, by just one of those serendipitous things, I actually have a store called Chillermania, which is just my books, my staff works there and I’m there just once in a great while. I just happened to be there one day and this woman walks in and she says, ‘It’s me, Linda, and I got a chance to meet her and talk to her and it was incredible and by then she had read 15 of my books. It was really neat. Having experiences like that really makes me ... I guess I just stop and remember my place in this whole thing. I guess I feel like I’m doing what I’m supposed to be doing.”

The author’s next book in the series, the 28th, will be out before Christmas, he said.