While sitting at an author meet-and-greet convention for her work, Main Street Books, with her boss, Emily Schroen, junior Nadia Moore posed the question,
”Do you think I could write a book?”
Her boss believed she could write a book, so in the span of just two hours, she had a rough draft of her children’s book titled “A Hug for My Heart.” She felt compelled to get it out into the world. Due to her working at a bookstore, she had been drawn into the world of writing. She has been given many opportunities to improve her writing through getting second opinions from the people at her work and talking to authors.
Moore believes that there are a lot of books that teach young kids how to treat other people, but not enough to teach kids how to treat themselves and understand their feelings. She has been working on her book for over a year now, and is hoping to release it close to Valentine’s Day to further drive home the book’s message of self-love. Moore believes that although her story is intended for young children, the message still applies to all ages, especially teenagers like herself.
“It’s about showing yourself love, but with being a teenager especially, [self-love] is something that is hard to almost believe in, because you’re always comparing yourself to other people, and I think sometimes we just need to look at the bigger picture and be like, ‘I’m doing great. I’m doing amazing.’ And I think sending that message out to little kids will be better because they’ll grow up with that, and then teach others about that,” said Moore.
Moore completed this challenging feat all on her own with next to no help. At this moment, all the writing for her book is done; she just has to finish the illustrations. She intends to keep the illustrations minimal to ensure her drawings don’t outshine the morals she intends to portray to her readers. Her intention is to help children understand that although it is important to treat others with kindness and respect, it’s also important to treat yourself with the same sentiment, which can be easily overlooked for children.
“I’ve learned from this experience that self-love is a hard concept. Everyone says self-love matters, but no one really talks about it to the point of, ‘I feel moved by reading this’ , and that’s what I’m really hoping to portray. With my book, I’ve really learned that if you want something, then you have to take it and do it yourself. Being a high school student, finding that self-love is a very difficult thing to do,” said Moore.
Although the purpose of this book is to teach others about self-love, Moore believes this has been a learning experience for her as well. She has come a long way since the initial rough draft of her book and has had people who unknowingly influenced her motivation to complete these tasks. She is self-publishing this book in order to get her message across.
“Through the process of making my book, I have really learned a lot about myself and that I’m stronger than I think. The typical thing in school is [that if] you fail a test, you feel as though you’re bad at this subject, and you can’t get better. You have more of a fixed mindset, and I think with writing this book– especially about self-love– you come to realize this growth mindset is attainable. You can look at [a challenge] and be like ‘maybe if I just try a little harder, I can get it.’ So when I was writing my children’s book, I think that I’ve learned a lot about how to have this mindset,” said Moore. “If no one buys this book, and I don’t get any money from it, that’s fine with me. I just want to know that my work is out there for the public to learn and grow from.”
Moore only wants to write again in the future if she feels the need to get a message across to people. When students take the leap to try new things, like writing a children’s book or entrepreneurship, they can grow a sense of individuality and help other people through the pursuit of their interests.
“Honestly, if you want to write a book, you just have to do it. You don’t need to worry about costs. You just need to do it. There are so many obstacles that now have been made easier. You can now self-publish, and it will cost merely nothing, or you can do very minimal illustrations, so if budget or anything else is stopping you, then just do it. Prove them wrong, and write your book,” said Moore.
Moore has been able to make all this possible through endurance and the positive reactions from the people around her. It can be scary to tackle both writing a children’s book and school, especially with the fear of backlash from those around you. Junior Carter Hill is just one of the many from her social circle who have made this dream of hers a reality with his support and encouragement.
“I’d say [writing a book is] definitely a hard thing to do. It’s going to take a lot of effort and a lot of passion to do it, because it’s not easy in any way. There’s always going to be something that’s hard about it,” said Hill. “It’s important for people in high school to have their own identity and to be themselves, especially because most people decide to try and shelter themselves from the rest of their peers. . . just pull through, don’t sell yourself short, because there’s no reason to do that. You should always try and show your best self.”
Moore confided in the people around her to share her story with as she got close to finishing it. In Moore’s math class, she came back from fall break excited to share with Junior AJ Webber her story. Although Moore was nervous about criticism, she wanted to inform the people she cared about of her story.
“It [takes] a lot of initiative to [write a book and] to think of that entire idea and to be able to execute it. I thought that it was really thoughtful that [Nadia Moore] wanted my opinion on what I thought about the book, so I felt really needed and safe, almost,” said Webber.
