Enfield students publish books before they even start high school

ENFIELD, Maine (WABI) – Two Enfield Station School students are now published authors!

“Some colleagues and I were able to go to the National Literacy Conference in Ohio last year. We met Stan Tucker and his team. They have the ‘Share Your Story’ program, the writing program that they also partnered with ‘Read for Literacy’, the publisher that published the book. So it was just a really great opportunity. And I loved hearing about it and seeing what the kids were able to do through the program. So we brought it back. We were able to test it in one or two classrooms last year, loved it, and rolled it out schoolwide this year. For all kids from preschool to 5th grade,” said Desiree Lindsay, literacy coach at Enfield Station School.

The students were then asked to test their creativity by writing and illustrating a story.

These stories would be sorted and submitted by teachers and certain books would be selected for publication.

Some were nervous about this.

“I thought, I’ll never win it. If someone else won something, I’d probably never win. That was my first thought,” said Addy Dow, a rising third-grader and author of “The Lazy Slug.”

But after they were published and able to share their story with their classmates…

“They say, ‘When will your book be on Amazon? When will your book be on Amazon? I’m going to buy your book! I’m going to buy your book!'” Dow said.

Anna Mercier, a rising sixth-grader and author of “The Magic of Kindness,” said, “It still doesn’t feel real. But um, when I think about it, it doesn’t look good. But then when I actually see them published, they look really cool.”

They enjoy the feeling of making it a reality.

“It’s a crazy feeling that other people can read what I’ve written and taken from my head,” Mercer said.

And show others that they can do it too.

“Be confident, follow your dreams and take comfort in the thought that you might succeed,” Dow said.

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