Photo courtesy of Sarah Cooley.
Cozied up in her Christmas pajamas at her home, Sarah Cooley holds a copy of her book, “Celebrating Christmas: History, Traditions, and Activities — A Holiday Book for Kids.”
Sarah Cooley has wanted to be a writer since she was very young.
Although she never set out to write a fiction book, when a publishing company reached out to her to write a Christmas story, she couldn’t turn down the opportunity.
“They had apparently found my Instagram account, @firstgraderatlast, and had seen creations from my Christmas Around the World scrapbook — it’s one of the things I have used in my first-grade classroom for years,” said Cooley, a first-grade teacher at Chelsea Park Elementary. “I developed it so that I could teach my kids different cultural traditions from around the world and how other countries celebrate Christmas.”
Rockridge Press approached Cooley with a book outline that they wanted her to complete. After submitting a writing sample, she was offered a contract.
“It just kind of fell into my lap,” she said. “I had been praying for this door to be opened. … I said ‘Lord, if this is supposed to happen, you’ll open a door.’”
Once the door was opened, the process moved quickly. The publisher reached out to Cooley before the end of the 2021-22 school year. She had to meet different deadlines for each section of the book that she worked on throughout the summer, and she had it completed before the new school year began.
An illustrator was contracted for the book and Cooley provided notes of her ideas for art for each section so the illustrator could create the designs based on her suggestions. Cooley said the illustrator put her own creative spin on the work and that she did an amazing job.
“Celebrating Christmas: History, Traditions, and Activities — A Holiday Book for Kids” was released in October, just ahead of this year’s holiday season. Cooley said she had to do research regarding the history of Christmas and said the challenging part was writing it in a way that six- to nine-year-olds could understand. The book is part of an eight-book series celebrating different holidays, written by different authors.
The book is divided into seven main parts: What is Christmas?, The History of Christmas, Preparing for Christmas, How to Celebrate Christmas, Around the World, Culture Corner and Learn to Say It. The end of the book has recipes, crafts and games.
In addition to writing, Cooley also handled marketing the book on her own using her social media accounts, including her 23,000 Instagram followers and over 11,000 followers on her Teachers Pay Teachers resource website.
When she got to announce the news of her book to her first-grade class, Cooley said she was thrilled. When they began their writing unit earlier in the school year, she told her class that she had always wanted to be an author since she was their age, and now she was.
“They cheered and were so excited I showed them my Amazon page,” she said. “Then I brought the actual copy in for them to see. That was a neat experience, and I used it as a lesson that if you have a dream and you really enjoy something, especially writing, keep doing it. You might have a real book one day.”
Cooley is looking forward to incorporating the book into her Christmas Around the World unit in December and making the crafts with her class, and she will give a copy to each student.
The book is dedicated to her own children, Emma, Grayson and Bennett, to which Cooley added, “I hope you always searched the skies for magic at Christmas.” On the acknowledgments page at the end of the book, Cooley thanked her late mother, who she said was always a huge supporter of her and her writing.
Cooley said she feels that being a published author will open doors for her in the future. She has some picture book ideas in the works and feels more comfortable putting her ideas out there.
“Now that it's finally here, it's exciting,” she said. “Everybody's been so supportive and so kind and it’s given me confidence going forward.”
