Author Nelson-Schmidt encourages students to follow their dreams

By LENNY C. LEPOLA

News Assis­tant Man­ag­ing Editor

Children’s book author and illus­tra­tor Michelle Nelson-Schmidt vis­ited Hylen Soud­ers Ele­men­tary School and Gen­eral Rose­crans Ele­men­tary on Thurs­day, Feb­ru­ary 21, and she brought not just her books and art works, she brought along a mes­sage for stu­dents — find out who they are, what they love to do, then fol­low their dreams.

Nelson-Schmidt, who has three children’s books under the Usborne & Kane Miller Pub­lish­ing imprint and another one in the prover­bial pipeline, spoke with stu­dents about her lat­est book, Jonathan James and the What If Mon­ster. She explained that it’s the “What if’s”, the wor­ries about what might hap­pen, that most often pre­vents peo­ple from fol­low­ing their dreams.

“If you keep wor­ries in your head you won’t hear that tiny lit­tle voice in your heart and miss clues to the magic life you’re sup­posed to have,” Nelson-Schmidt told stu­dents dur­ing an after­noon ses­sion at Rose­crans Ele­men­tary. “Get the wor­ries out of your head long enough to try new things, and some­day you will meet some­one or see some­thing or do some­thing and you will say: That’s what I have to do.”

Nelson-Schmidt said the world needs more dream fol­low­ers, and asked the stu­dents to promise to fol­low their hearts and fol­low their dreams.

“Don’t ever let any­one tell you that you can­not have a magic life, that you don’t deserve one,” Nelson-Schmidt said. “The next thing you try might light you up inside and become your magic life; and some­day you will wake up and say: I love what I do, I love being me. When you wake up in the morn­ing you will say to your­self: I love my life.”

For addi­tional infor­ma­tion about children’s book author and illus­tra­tor Michelle Nelson-Schmidt go to < michellepaints.com >.

Posted by Gary Henery on Mar 6 2013. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.