A novel by 12-year-old, Sierra Treewater
and her grandmother, Roberta R. Carr.
A novel by 12-year-old, Sierra Treewater
and her grandmother, Roberta R. Carr.
The Story: 13-year-old Coral Robertson is a popular 8th grader at Bay Vista Middle School. Her classmate, Shay O'Brien, is a loner who lives in the shadows. The two girls have nothing in common until they become finalists in a speech contest. What begins as a friendly competition escalates into manipulation and bullying. As Coral struggles with pleasing people and Shay teeters on the edge, their worlds start to unravel. Will Coral and Shay find the courage to face their fears? What is holding them back? Who wins the grand prize?
*The novel will be publish in April 2023.
*The novel will be publish in April 2023.
The Cover
A good cover offers clues about what's inside a book. My 16-year-old granddaughter, Collette, captured Sierra's and my ideas early in the writing process, which nudged us to define out characters and storylines in detail. The drawing became a compass that guided scene development. The final cover came surprisingly close to our original vision. What does it tell you about this story?
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Bringing Characters to Life
Sierra and I spent months thinking about our main characters' physical attributes, personalities, values, hopes, and dreams. As we brought the girls to life on paper, Collette brought them to life with drawings. Deb Strand, a watercolorist, completed the transformation.
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Haylee, Dhvani, Everly, Coral
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Shay O'Brien's Evolution
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Meli, the Bee Girl
We hired a graphic artist to bring a mythological character to life using two pictures of Sierra as inspiration. The first-bee girl didn't capture the whimsical flare we sought. We asked the artist to change bee-girl's expression, enlarge the crown and wings, and add painted fingernails. The second image came closer to what we imagined but was still off. Collette suggested we quit trying to replicate Sierra's face and go with a cartoonish one. We kept the body but added a new head and changed the skin tone, ending up with this adorable creature. After brainstorming potential names, we chose Meli, which means 'bee' in Hawaiian. Isn't she adorable?
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Hi, there! I'm Meli, which rhymes with jelly❣️
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Potential names
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