Camila Sky

The story behind the book… (Drawings by the children)

Starting February 2021, Yolanda Rivas invited me as a writer, she is part of a team that organizes activities for the Children Readers Club of San Borja, a municipality in Peru (Club Infantil de Lectores de la municipalidad de San Borja). Thanks to her, I could participate and meet the organizer, Carmen Colmenares, and the moderator, Maribel Remache, who welcomed me. All of them were responsible to make this delightful encounter a reality.

Originally I was going to share a story I had already published on my blog. However, I considered it was a better option to write something specifically for this club of young readers. Therefore, they would be the first ones to read it.

Once I made up my mind, I faced the big question: what to write about?

The first thing I did was to define the underlying messages: To accept people even if they are different from us and the perks that come with it. Respect toward others. Collaboration. Family values. The next thing was to create the story and the characters.

I did not want to create a superhero like in the movies or comics. More like a normal person, but with an extraordinary ability that made them undoubtedly distinct. That extraordinary ability would represent any other that actual people have.

Flying or being immortal to contribute to our world is not needed. Although in fiction we have the flexibility and only a few have never wished to fly on their own. Besides, flying is an expression of freedom and a humankind’s dream that led us to reach high achievements. This is how Camila Sky came out.

The presentation day:

I stayed quiet in the beginning; I was a surprise. A girl found out and said she knew what the surprise was, still she didn’t spill the beans. After I had the honor to be introduced by Julieta Campana from Cultura Kids Perú, we started the dynamic of my participation with the children.

The dynamic with the children was awesome. I loved being able to hear what they thought and it was satisfactory to see they understood the messages within the story. They were participative. Also, it was charming to see the drawings they made. In fact, I proposed to publish them here.

With the authorization of their parents, here you can see some of the drawings by the children, based on Camila Sky’s story (titled Camila Celeste in Spanish). All rights belong to these young artists. These children are between eight and twelve years of age (by the time of this publication, March 16th, 2021).

All of this was possible thanks to a system created with the honest interest to support reading in the youngsters. This includes the children’s parents and legal tutors, the organizers, and, of course, those who infuse life to all of this: the children.

Drawings by the children of Club Infantil de Lectura de San Borja. Based on the story Camila Sky. (In alphabetic order, by their last names)