For one of my week two assignments, I chose to do the assignment, Sharing a Book that was submitted by Ana Muñoz de Rivera Blasco. I am in the Elementary Education program at the University of Mary Washington. Last semester, I was assigned to write a children’s book. I am a pretty creative person, however I can’t draw at all, so when this children’s book was assigned I freaked out a little bit. I kept thinking throughout the semester about what I would do. I would come up with ideas, but none of them were “aha” moments for me. I wanted to write about something that had meaning to me. I had a really rough semester. I spent the semester back and forth to Lynchburg every weekend with my family because my uncle was near the end of his life. A week before he passed away, he told me something that I will never forget and I finally had my “aha” moment with my children’s book. As a child, I had a really hard time believing in myself. I am lucky enough to have an extremely close family and growing up, being the second youngest out of five cousins on my dad’s side, I found it harder to believe in myself because my cousins were big role models who I felt, set the bar high. I always had my aunts and uncles believing in me. I lost my aunt to cancer when I was 14 years old and it was devastating. We were extremely close and I have always wished she could still be here with me to see all of my accomplishments. A week before my uncle passed away I was telling him goodnight one night and he grabbed my hands and put mine between is and he said I want to tell you something. (In my mind, I am thinking whatever you’re about to say is going to make me cry) He said something that brought me to absolute tears and then he said another thing that I will never forget. He told me he wants me to stay in school and keep making him proud. He told me to continue to follow my dreams and I will always make him proud no matter what. He said he was sorry he would never be able to see me graduate which really breaks my heart. When he said that, I realized that I do believe in myself. I am absolutely devastated that I lost my uncle, but I know that they will always be with me. I chose to write a story called Never Give Up. In the story, the little girl’s name is Blair and she is Miss White’s student. In the book, both Blair and Miss White are me. Blair is me (Stephanie Blair White) as a child because I had a hard time believing in myself, but I had people telling me I can do anything I put my mind to. Also, Miss White is me because I will continue to follow my dreams and become a teacher and be able to tell students I believe in them and I believe that they can do anything they put their minds to. I hope that this will impact some people because I needed those people in my life telling me I could do it. I kind of went with my own style of both writing and illustrating, but I did get some ideas from Lauren Child, illustrator of the Charlie and Lola series because she uses multiple media forms. I included something three-dimensional. I used eyeballs on the characters. I used tissue paper for the background. I used it for the grass and the track. I used stamps on every single page. I also used the same stamps on each page, the butterfly and the fish, which represent to me that my aunt and uncle are always there for me. It is just a reminder. I also used stickers and scrapbook paper throughout the book. I used various colors to give the book a “pop”. I put the writing in rainbow order. I also used different fonts of my own for typology that stands out. I also switched up the placement of the typology throughout the book. I present to you…Never Give Up! , an original story by me!

I also uploaded my book to my flickr page

I hope you enjoyed!

Stephanie