By DAVID DUPONT
BG Independent News
Niki Schroeder was trying to convince her 3-year-old daughter Sophia to take a nap when she dreamed up her children’s book.
Now Sophia is 11 and the star of the picture book, “Go To Sleep My Love,” written by her mother and illustrated by Maddie Roehl.
Schroeder and Roehl will present a reading and book signing Saturday, July 27, at 11 a.m. at the Grand Rapids Branch Library.
Schroeder, of Grand Rapids, will read from the book, and there will be children’s activities. The self-published book will be on sale.
This is, the author said, her first and only book. She has enjoyed writing since she was young, and had a poem published.
This effort, though, came unexpectedly. “I was trying to get her down for a nap and she didn’t want to do it. She was coming up with all sorts things she wanted to do, and I was talking with her about why she should take a nap. The story just came to me, and it went from there.”
She shared the story with others including Sophia and her friends. “Everyone seemed to like this little story, and I thought: ‘Why not let’s try to put it together.’”
She needed to find someone to illustrate the book, and someone who would do the job for no more than the prospect that the story would someday turn into a printed book, and there may be some compensation.
Schroeder heard about Roehl through a friend of her eldest daughter, Sierra, who was then at Otsego High as was Roehl.
Schroeder gave her free rein except in one important aspect — she wanted the little girl to look like Sophia and the mother to look a bit like her and a bit like Sierra.
Schroeder peddled the book to publishers, but without an agent that proved futile.
“I put it on the back burner,” Schroeder said.
Then a teaching colleague at ITT Tech, Bobby Johnson of BLU Alteractive, suggested she self-publish using a program offered by Amazon.
So the project was a go again, or at least a stop and go.
Her husband, Jeff Schroeder, said that the program proved challenging to work with, requiring constant reformatting.
“Go To Sleep My Love” was finally completed in April. The book is available from Amazon as print on demand. Some copies are available at Savvy Avenue Market Place, 24186 Front St. in Grand Rapids.
Schroeder will also have copies on hand to sell at the library on Saturday. She’ll also have them for sale at the Apple Butter Fest on Oct. 13.
Schroeder works as a staffing recruiter at Advance Group in Sylvania and teaches online criminal justice courses for Purdue University.
Schroeder, who grew up in Maumee, said it took her awhile to decide what she wanted to study when she attended Lourdes College as an undergraduate. She started out as an early childhood education major, but was dissatisfied. “I changed my major quite a bit,” she said. “I just looked at course catalog for what classes really interested me and that’s how I ended up in criminal justice and sociology.”
She later earned a Masters in Business Administration and a masters in criminal justice from Colorado Tech.
Schroeder said she has penned a sequel, but has misplaced it. Her husband is sure it’s on a computer somewhere. Still she’s open to writing another book.
For Sophia, “Go To Sleep My Love” has been part of her growing up. She doesn’t remember when her mother first got the idea, but she remembers listening to the story and her mother working on the project.
Her favorite part is the end when the reluctant napper realizes if she goes to sleep she can dream and there’s so much she can do then. She can even be a super hero.
