Amy Axelrod told Sharon elementary students that it was okay to call her "Mrs. Pig."

The children's book author spoke Thursday to students at Case Avenue, Musser and West Hill elementary schools about how her life experiences found their way into the stories she writes.

Mrs. Axelrod -- who was born in Massachusetts and now lives in Hurley, N.Y. -- wrote a series of books about a family of pigs, including "Pigs Will Be Pigs," "Pigs at Odds," "Pigs on the Blanket" and "Pigs on the Ball." All of the pig books deal with using math in everyday situations.

"When I was your age, I didn't think math was fun," Mrs. Axelrod told the kids. "It was the one subject that made me a little squirmy."

Mrs. Axelrod wrote the pig books to make math fun for kids, because, "We use math all the time. We don't even know we're doing math."

The pigs in the stories are based on Mrs. Axelrod, her husband and her two sons.

"Kids laugh at me when I say they're from my family," she said. "But if you take the characters and make them people, would you think they were true?"

The inspiration for the first book, "Pigs Will Be Pigs," came from an experience with Mrs. Axelrod and her sons. In the book, the pigs scrounge up enough money to go out to eat.

In real life, Mrs. Axelrod wanted to take her sons out to eat, but she had no money in her purse. They looked all over the house -- in their pants pockets, in the bedrooms, even in the dryer -- to gather enough money to go eat.

As they sat at the drive-up window, creating a traffic jam because Mrs. Axelrod had to count out handfuls of change, she felt embarrassed.

"I was sweating and red in the face," she said. "I said, do you know what we are? We're a bunch of pigs."

So the Pig family was born.

"Everything about my life is in these books," she said.

Her husband's annual birthday miniature golf game is highlighted in "Pigs on the Ball," when the Pigs play golf and learn about geometry. "Pigs At Odds," in which the Pigs go to a carnival, is based on the Axelrod family's trip the carnival.

She also puts her family's hobbies and interests in the books. For instance, Mrs. Axelrod loves to garden. So does Mrs. Pig.

"You can learn a lot about me from reading the books," she said.

Her stories are not limited to math and pigs alone. Mrs. Axelrod read her latest release, "My Last Chance Brother," out loud to the kids. The book -- which is about two brothers, Max and Gordon -- is based on the relationship between her two sons.

Another book, "The Great Balloon Race," features the Newshounds, who are dogs that work at a television station. The anchor, Isaac, is based on a sheepdog Mrs. Axelrod once had.

Mrs. Axelrod said she can't sit down at a computer and write. She writes all her books long-hand on yellow-lined paper with black ink in the work area off of her kitchen.

When she gets writer's block, she bakes giant chocolate chip cookies, which she said she's famous for.

She told the kids the first story she wrote was not very good but that she got better, which they should always take into consideration when working on something.

"The more you work at it, the better you get," she said.

You can e-mail Herald Staff Writer Erin Remai at eremai@sharon-herald.com.