Sheylan is a talented 11-year-old girl and she is pursuing a project: publishing her first book. Sheylan lives in a multilingual family in Alaska. Her love for books inspired her to write her very own story on friendship, Elefante y topo. You can help Sheylan achieve her goal: with the help of her mother, she set up a Kickstarter campaign to fund publishing costs and share her book with the world. I gladly supported the project and I can’t wait to read her book to my children. I was curious to learn more about this brilliant young author, so I asked Sheylan few questions about herself, her project, and her motivation.

Could you introduce yourself?

My name is Sheylan and I am 11 years old and some of my favorite things to do are reading, writing, drawing, meeting new people, singing, and of course, being creative!

Can you describe your family and the languages you speak at home?

I have three brothers and no sisters, but my brothers are most of my inspiration. I’ve always loved reading to them and that made me want to read to more kids like them! At home I speak French or Spanish with my mother and English with my father.

What is your favorite thing about living in Alaska?

My favorite thing of Alaska is that in the cold winters there is snow and we can play a lot and also that we can travel from there. I also love the summers, because they are not too hot or neither too cold.

I have heard you love to read. Can you share some of your favorite books or authors?

There are so many authors that I love…it is hard for me to choose! I enjoy reading all kind of books! I love graphic novels by Raina Telgemeier. I love French Author Orianne Lallemand. The books “Martine” captivated me since I was a baby! 

What inspired you to write a book?

My mom had the idea of writing a book, but the reality is that I’ve always dreamed of writing a book. I didn’t know I was going to write a book at this age, so I’m so excited that I did! The main reason why I wrote my book is because I wanted to share a message with children around the world but also that I wanted to help parents and teachers with these important messages.

Because I loved reading and I wanted to read to other kids around the world, I started a YouTube channel. It is called “Sheysheyland”. In this channel I read books and I sing songs in Spanish, French, and English!

But, to read books, you need to always ask permission to the authors. Some of the authors that I requested to read their books didn’t answer me. So I started running out of books to read! That is why I decided to write a book, that talks about an elephant and mole, it would start a whole new universe in my YouTube channel!

In what language did you write the first draft of your book? Was it hard to translate it in other languages?

I wrote the draft in Spanish, because that is the language of my heart. But it was not so hard to translate it. Of course, my mom helped me, and I really enjoyed translating it.

The theme of your book is friendship. How are friends important to you? What are the qualities that make a true friend?

The qualities of a true friend are loyalty, comprehension, and trust. A true friend is there for good times and bad times and when a good friend is loyal, it will make you feel comfortable when you are expressing your emotions to that friend. It is like a brother or sister for the kids who don’t have any siblings.

Friends are important to me because they make me feel better when I’m sad. All of us have difficult times, and when we have friends we can tell them what we feel inside, and when we tell somebody what we feel inside it makes us feel better, especially when it’s somebody we trust and we love.

If you could send a message to children all over the world, what would you tell them?

I would say that that kindness is so important. It doesn’t mean somebody needs to be the same as You to be nice to them. We can be friends with people that are different than us.

One act of kindness can change the whole life of somebody. So it’s important to be kind at all times, even with the ones who are different than us, and we will never want to exclude other kids that are different, because that will make them feel sad inside and feel left out. And I’ve been thinking of all you guys, kids, when he wrote and illustrated this book. I dedicate this book to you and I hope you enjoy it when you read it!

I was excited and inspired by Sheylan’s campaign before this exchange, but now I’m in complete awe. If you want to support this young author to publish her first book, back her project here and don’t forget to share it with your friends!