While many people dream of becoming an author one day, an eight-year-old from Idaho, United States has turned his dream into reality.
Eight-year-old boy Dillon Helbig wrote a book by hand, complete with color illustrations, about his Christmas adventures titled 'The Adventures of Dillon Helbig's Crismis". The 88-page handwritten book by Dillon "His Self" is about how the boy travels back in time when a star atop his Christmas tree blows up, transporting him to 1621 at the first-ever Thanksgiving.
During a visit to the Ada Community Library, Boise, Idaho with his grandmother in late 2021, Dillon snuck the only copy of his handwritten book in the section containing fiction books, reports The New York Times.
Soon the book became a huge hit among readers in the local library. And when librarian Paige Beach saw it, the staff at the library decided to catalog the book. Talking about the book, Beach told CNN, "It's really exploded here at the library... I thought it was very cute. I was struck by how much effort went into it. I definitely thought we should do something special with it and not just hand it back to him. It was very well done and deserved some recognition."
The librarian created the Whoodini Award for Best Young Novelist which was given to Dillon, to recognize and reward his efforts which were much appreciated.
Sharing the news, the Ada Community Library wrote in a Facebook post in December 2021:
Since then, the book has become a huge hit among readers, so much so that over 100 people were waiting to check out the book as of February 7, 2022. Not just that, Beach informed that many publishers have reached out to the library offering to publish Dillon's book. "I'm not sure if their family has decided on anyone in particular, but there are a lot of calls and offers to get it published," she told CNN.
