Lost for more than 40 years and rediscovered during the days of the pandemic, a childrens’ book written when a Kelowna resident was just 19 years old has now been published.
Pamela Reesor had forgotten that while living in East Africa all those years ago she had written about eight or nine pages of a book, inspired by a ‘beautiful baobab tree’ and her favourite girls’ name, Lisa.
After going through some memorabilia during the long days of stay-at-home orders, Reesor found a notebook with the tale of a young girl who lives in a forest with no parents and no human friends.
“I sent the book to my friend Catherine-Anne Tower, who lives in Mexico, who is the grand-niece of Emily Carr,” explained Reesor. “She does some artwork and designs bags, tabletops and things like that.”
Tower read the book of seven-year-old Lisa, with blue eyes and amber-coloured hair, who lives at the base of a large tree with a group of animal friends. She then returned the book along with digital paintings to go with each page, depicting Lisa, her owl, bunny and tree companions.
Lisa’s World: Written by Pamela Reesor and illustrated by Catherine Anne-Tower. (Jen Zielinski/Black Press Media)
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It was then that Lisa’s World became reality in a 13-page, colourfully designed book that touches on fear, jealousy, loneliness and above all, the power of friendship
“Between us, we have learned how to illustrate and publish a book, not that I have another one in me,” laughed Reesor.
Despite the many years between writing and publishing the book, Reesor said it was a story she felt needed to be told.
“I thought it is very apropos, for its time, but I thought it is kind of an interesting story and good for kids to hear a little bit of this,” said Reesor.
Especially the end of the book where, “Once again, their little part of the world was happy”.
This isn’t Reesor’s million-dollar idea, with only 150 copies of the book printed. Instead, she hopes it serves as a tale that will resonate with her grandchildren as well as others.
The book is soon to be on the shelves of Mosaic Books downtown Kelowna on Bernard Avenue.
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@Jen_zeejen.zielinski@bpdigital.caLike us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter.
