Teacher pens children’s book

By DAVID LOPEZ
Special to the NEWS

After her father passed away six years ago in late February, Laura Abrego remembered the words he would often say: “If you want something to happen, you have to make it happen.”

Having taught Spanish to elementary students for the last three years at the Sam Houston IB World School in Harlingen, the San Benito native felt that, with children being close to her heart, writing a children’s book was something she could do.

“I said, ‘I’m going to try and submit it, what’s the worst that could happen?’ They could say no?” Abrego said.
Her book is titled, “Fun at the Festival” and follows the story of a young boy who reluctantly attends a fall festival with his family and best friend only to end up having the time of his life, surrounded by all the new sights, sounds, activities and laughter.

“It’s actually based on a true story,” Abrego said. “We took our son to Medina, Texas when he was six years old where it’s supposed to be one of the best fall festivals in the state. There was a pumpkin patch and a petting zoo. We took a hayride to an apple orchard…and although he wasn’t too excited at first because he didn’t know what it was, he had a blast and didn’t want to come home at the end of the day.”

On World Read Aloud day on Feb. 1, Abrego’s principal cancelled her classes for the day so she could do a read-aloud of her book, which had been out for a week. One by one, classes from all grades came into the library to listen to Abrego read her book.

“The message of the book itself is to not be afraid to try new things,” Abrego said. “One thing I told my students is that there’s nothing wrong with trying something new. A lot of times, because we come from a small community, the kids think stuff like this is impossible. Some of them would say, ‘Wow, we know an actual author.’ I told them, ‘If you really want something and you work hard at it, you can make it happen.’”

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