Something For The Younger Readers
Do you have a child or grandchild who loves to read? My favorite part of being a guest teacher is sharing my love of books with students. This past year, I read George's Marvelous Medicine with a first grade class. They asked about it even when I wasn't in their room. 
After eight years as a romance writer and twenty years as a teacher, I combined my love of children with my love of books and wrote two children's books. 
Huzzah-A Pool Mouse came about last year when my husband and I visited historic Williamsburg, Virginia. We stayed at a hotel and while I was swimming in the pool, the idea for the story came to me. I shared it with my husband and then asked my daughter to illustrate the story for me. 
My other book, Maple's Colors, came from a talk my husband and I had one night about a tree who didn't want to go to sleep for the winter. We talked through the idea many times until I finally decided to throw caution to the wind and write the book. With Maple, I reached out to a wonderful design company and set about selecting an illustrator to bring the story to fruition. Amazon
Both stories are filled with meaningful messages of "being yourself" and "accepting differences". The illustrations are colorful and evoke the emotions of the stories. The books are penned under my childhood nickname and maiden name- Missy Watling and feature a childhood photo of myself on the author page. 
During this past year, I have been able to share with Country Elementary School, the path I took, the illustrator's journey and the final products, which now sit on display in their library. I hope I provided motivation to those young writers to reach for their dreams.
Enjoy your summer and Keep Reading,
Melissa Keir
