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Kitimat author releases children's book

Kitimat author Kathleen Cherry has a children's book published.
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Kathleen Cherry at the Kitimat Public Library during her book launch.

Inside a colourful, easy to read children’s book, readers are shown the journey of Josh, coming to grips with a grandfather he doesn’t quite understand through circumstances outside anyone’s control.

Kathleen Cherry, a local school counsellor, has just had published her first children’s book, called Blowing Bubbles.

Children and adults were treated to a reading at a book launch even at the Kitimat Public Library on February 23.

Using bubble gum bubbles as the connecting force, the character Josh has to learn to come to grips with his Grandfather George, who has suffered a stroke and is not the same man he used to be.

For Cherry, the book didn’t come from any specific episode in her own life, but is the culmination of her life experience.

“I’m a school counsellor so I do work a lot with books in general when I’m working with kids, and certainly my parents are getting quite elderly...so not any specific issue. More watching the relationship with my kids and also my students,” she said.

The youth and adolescent experience has drawn her in before. She said she has a few manuscripts, both in children’s book form and chapter books, which deal with things like the teenager experience or one about a 14-year-old autistic person.

“I’m always puttering away at it [writing],” she said.

None of those others have so far published but the release of Blowing Bubbles through Aaspirations Publishing has her confident that her name will appear on other books to come.

She finds writing to a student audience is a good fit for her. Working in a school, and also working away at a doctorate, gives her that special insight to that age group.

Her manuscript Blowing Bubbles was in 2006 and 2009 a finalist in the Writer’s Union of Canada’s Writing for Children competition.

Finalizing in that competition gives her manuscript the chance to be picked up by a Canadian publisher.

As an author of other finalist manuscripts, she said she was beginning to feel like the bridesmaid, never the bride, but is very excited to now have a book on shelves.

The book is available through Aaspirations Publishing, or on Amazon.ca.

Cherry said she is encouraging people who read her book to leave reviews behind.

That’s not for sales, but in the hopes that favourable reviews will make getting published in the future easier.