There’s this classic toy called the View-Master.
You bring it up to your eyes like a pair of binoculars and through it you can see a picture that changes with just a click of a button.
Some people only see an image, but when 9-year-old Gabriel Womack used the toy, he saw an entire fictional world.
“One of the picture slides was a toucan, and so he would make up these hilarious stories about the toucan," Tanishia Womack said. "I was like, ‘Gabriel, you could be a writer.’ I was like, ‘You're really talented. You should start writing your stories down.’ So, he would start writing.”
That’s his mother Tanishia Womack. She says Gabriel’s enthusiasm for creating stories sparked the same passion within his older brother Michael, and soon, the two began writing their own detective-themed books.
Gabriel’s book is titled "Detective Pecan and the Case of the Missing Banana" and Michael’s book is "Ted E. Solvit and the Case of the Missing Tiger’s Eye Diamond."
“When they get together, the way that the kids bounce ideas and, kind of, their storyline off of each other, I'm like, 'You guys need to work together on everything,'" Tanishia said. "They really feed into each other, and they're like, 'Oh, no, wait, what about this?' Or 'Well, what if we do it this way?' And it's just really cool to see it come together, and then I kind of just have to make it make sense.”
Tanishia says she double-checks for accuracy and likes to make sure that the books are not just entertaining, but informative. She leaves the work of coming up with ideas and developing the story, however, to Michael and Gabriel, who don’t always enjoy the daily writing process.
“Every day just write a couple of sentences," Tanishia said. "Even if it's just a couple of sentences, we can expound on that. And so sometimes, they might not do it on the outside, but I can just feel them rolling their eyes on the inside.”
It wasn’t until Tanishia hired an illustrator to bring the characters to life that she says her sons started to get excited about the process. They added plushies of the main characters and customized trading cards to accompany their books as well.
“I tell them, ‘Sky's not even the limit,'" Tanishia said. "'We don't have limits. There's no ceiling. So just imagine how far you want to go.'”
As someone who grew up loving creative writing herself, Tanishia says she never thought it was something she could pursue beyond a hobby, and she didn’t want her sons to grow up thinking the same. One way she aims to support them is to sign them up for at least one book festival every month. This month, she chose the 2nd Annual Southern New Mexico Book Festival, where Gabriel and Michael will be reading and selling their books.
According to the chair of the planning committee Eva Nevarez St. John, part of the festival is dedicated specifically to children’s books thanks to donations from COAS Bookstore, the Children’s Reading Alliance and another organization from someone who passed away recently.
“One of the people that we have, their organization’s called Dolly Parton's Imagination Library," Nevarez said. "They have a program that targets children from 0 to 5 where they can get monthly books for free, including bilingual books as well.”
In a letter posted on the Imagination Library’s website, Dolly Parton states that her dad couldn’t read, and she felt it held him back from achieving his dreams, so promoting literacy among children became a passion of hers.
She wrote, “The seeds of these dreams are often found in books and the seeds you help plant in your community can grow across the world.”
The mission of Imagination Library started in Tennessee and eventually spread to and throughout New Mexico, and like Nevarez, Dolly Parton would have loved to hear of Gabriel and Michael’s authorship.
“I'm really looking forward to seeing them," Nevarez said. "That’s taking it to another level, not only encouraging children to read, but to actually write stories and imagine stories. I think that’s really awesome.”
As her sons prepare for their first book festival, Tanishia says she wants children who attend to leave with one thing.
“I really hope that they leave inspired," she said. "Whatever wild idea they have that they think might be unattainable. I want them to go for it. Why not? I don't feel like age has to be a limit or a boundary to anything. I think the community that we are in really nurtures and inspires that as well, to just go for more.”
The Southern New Mexico Book Festival will be held tomorrow, Oct. 3, from 10:00 a.m. - 4:30 p.m. The event is free and will be held at Doña Ana Community College’s East Mesa Campus in the Doña Ana Student Resources building.
Serena Johnson is a fellow with the New Mexico Local News Fellowships and Internships Program, which places emerging journalists in newsrooms across New Mexico. Learn more at www.newmexicolocalnewsfellowships.org.
