Bargersville resident Stacey Faubion, a middle school science teacher at Calvary Lutheran School, released her first book, “Violet Jenkins Saves the Day.”
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The old adage was accurate — the destination truly was the journey.
At least in Stacey Faubion’s experience, that was the case. She had grown up traveling around the country on vacations. Her grandparents had converted a school bus into a camper when she was young, and her large family would take vacations to Florida in that camper.
When she had her own family, Faubion loved to venture out to unknown places.
Those memories stuck out to her as she worked on her first book.
“Road trips just seemed to be coming back to my mind a lot, because that always seemed to be the memorable part about a vacation,” she said. “Getting ready, all of the mishaps along the way — that was the best part.”
From that real-life experience comes Faubion’s debut book, “Violet Jenkins Saves the Day.” Aimed at middle-school readers, the book tells the story of the clever, science-minded Violet as she tries to get her family to the Sunshine State to reunite with her kindred spirit, her aunt Vivian.
Obstacles along the way prove challenging even for Violet’s schemes. But through her main character, and her own experience, Faubion hopes that kids and adults take away the importance of perseverance and never giving up.
“Sometimes, you have a dream and you have a goal, but it’s not always a straight path to get there. There can be a lot of twists or turns. But once you get to your goal, it still feels amazing,” she said. “That’s sort of what it felt like writing this book. And that’s sort of what it is for Violet — she had a lot of obstacles to reach her goal, but it was great when she got there.”
Faubion, a Bargersville resident, has been a middle school science teacher at Calvary Lutheran School for the past 20 years. That influenced her decision to write this book.
“I’m around middle school kids all the time, and I love reading. So I just kind of put the two together,” she said. “I think all teachers always have that creative side to them. I’m not artistic, so my creative side came out through writing, and it dealt with the age group I deal with every day.”
When Faubion pondered what kind of story she would tell, she thought back to her own childhood, traveling around the country. The road trip was the framework around the story, but she needed a character who could drive that action.
“I’m a science teacher and I always loved science as a kid, so I wanted her to be a lover of science,” she said. “I wanted her to have big dreams, just like I wanted my students to have big dreams.”
The result was Violet, a fearless middle school student with dreams of becoming a pilot and then an astronaut. She would be daring and adventurous, refusing to let things stand in her way.
Which of course, gets her in trouble sometimes.
“She’s like a lot of kids in my classroom who I admire, a little bit like me when I was a kid,” she said.
Along the way, some of her students, who saw posts about the book coming together on Instagram, asked if they could read it in advance. They went through it at the end of last school year, and provided Faubion with feedback.
She tweaked it over the summer, and had it formatted. “Violet Jenkins Saves the Day” came out on Sept. 27.
“All of the kids and the principal and teachers had a ‘Violet Jenkins Day’ here at school, where they all wore purple. They sold my book at the book fair, and sold out of all of my copies,” she said. “It’s been a dream come true to see kids holding up your book and reading it.”
“Violet Jenkins Saves the Day” is available on Amazon.
