Angela Hunter Pauli

Roy, Utah

Communications Major

Creativity Engagement track

 

Superheroes Save the Day

 

Superheroes Saves the Day is a middle grade chapter book that I am currently pursuing publishing. This is a high interest, easy to read story about Jacob’s Superhero club. It is about 10,000 words. It was written with fourth grade boys in mind, to encourage reading. By being a smaller word count, I am hoping more kids who don’t want to read will pick up the book and feel like they are a better reader because they can finish a book in a reasonable amount of time before their attention span is lost.

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Jacob starts his club with his best friend Britton. At their first meeting, a friend is stung by a bee. They spring into action and have their first experience saving lives. While on a scavenger hunt they save a neighbor, Grandma Gale, by calling 911. The boys are interviewed on the news and then learn more about the fire department and true heroes.  Their next big idea is to sell homemade suckers to earn money to buy stuffed animals for the fire department to give to kids at accidents.

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My book is inspired by actual events.  A young boy playing Batman in his front yard reported a fire to his mother and then called the police.  In Syracuse, Utah, a boy sold snow cones to raise money for bulletproof vests for canine police officers.  My son and his friends loved to dress up. One day my son wore his Superman costume into Sportsman’s Warehouse and got a sliver in his hand. He believed he was Superman and yelled through the store, “The kryptonite’s got me.” Young people often think they can’t change the world because they are kids. This story teaches kids they don’t need capes to make a difference.

 

In writing the manuscript I learned that writing dialog was a weakness of mine. When my children were the same age as the characters in the story, they spoke clearer and sounded older than most of the neighborhood kids. I have made many changes on my manuscript and the dialog is closer, but this requires more editing to sound authentic.

 

This project benefitted my fourteen-year-old son. He was a beta reader four years ago when I initially wrote the story and he was able to see that sometimes it takes a lot of revisions before a project is presentable. Basically, his English teacher is right. Revise. Revise. Revise.

Editing this project benefitted me by letting me focus on a passion of mine; writing stories. Editing my manuscript let me apply all of the skills I have learned the last two years of my education. I used online research, different elements of the software Word, and interviewing people. As I continue this project, I will use the marketing skills, time management skills and web page development skills. As an added bonus, I learned to make suckers.

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Every day when my dad dropped me off at school he would tell me to take a calculated risk. This meant he wanted me to think about things, then get out of my comfort zone. Even though he’s passed on, I am honoring that request in college.