Children’s book author Lisa Caprelli may have inspired two classes of sixth-graders at Adkison Elementary School to aim for a future career in writing and/or illustrating books. After nine months of writing, illustrating and editing on Wednesday afternoon the books were delivered to approximately 70 students who celebrated at a book signing party.
Students of Ellen Howell and Melissa Torres tapped into their own unique talents to create separate books by the same title, “Adkison’s Beei-ing Happy: Remembering Moments.” Students wrote stories about “what makes their heart smile” – limited to one page – with an illustration on the opposing page. The back cover summarizes that the print-on-demand book is a “reminder that happiness can be created, shared and cherished – one story, one drawing, and one smile at a time.”
“Today is really all about them being authors and signing their own published book,” said Caprelli. “This will live forever. Some of them will know how to do this the rest of their lives if they want. They can put this on their resume that they were published authors in the sixth grade.”
Each student got to take home their own copy of the book they helped create and paid for by Caprelli. Parents or anyone can purchase copies from Amazon for $16 and can be found by searching for “Adkison’s Bee-ing Happy: Our Journey Together.”
The students were coached on writing skills during Zoom sessions with Caprelli, a resident of Orange County. Stories were typed by students, and edited by teachers and students while students also had a hand in formatting the copy with various fonts and using templates offered by Canva. Caprelli then created the PDFs used in the publishing process.
The covers of both books – which are identical with the exception of a change of verbiage – were designed by one of Caprelli’s creative directors. Incorporated into the design was two of Caprelli’s Unicorn Jazz characters which are trademarked.
“We started in August,” said Caprelli, “and I came two times in-person and … easily spent 120 hours.”
Caprelli has made a career of visiting schools all over the country to “impress upon children to grow up and do the things you love.” She estimates appearing at four to eight schools each month to share her journey as an author and get kids excited about writing and being creative.
“I grew up in modest beginnings in El Paso, Texas, really poor. So for some kids they never get to leave town but I proved, like many, that these kids can change their lives with teamwork, being kind and learning technology and even technologies even invented after you were born.”
Teacher Ellen Howell said that she enjoyed the process with her class.
“We write in class all the time but it gave a chance for my kids to know the process about becoming an author and put it in a tangible, real perspective for them,” said Howell. “I think a lot of them realize just how much work writing books is.”
To learn more about the project visit linktr.ee/unicornjazz
