01940 Winter 2021_Reduced

40 | 01940
For new author,
it's up, up and away
Sara Rocco has published her first book, "A World
From Above."
COURTESY: SARA ROCCO
BY ALLYSHA DUNNIGAN
Sara Rocco spent the end of her senior year
in her children's literature course writing a book
about a balloon traveling the world, having no
idea the journey that book would soon go on.
As a part of her class, she was asked to write
a children's book, but had no idea what to write
about.
After taking some time, Rocco came up with
the idea of a little boy in New York City releasing
his balloon to let it travel and see the world,
leading to her first published book, "A World
From Above."
Rocco said she was thinking of story ideas, but
isn't the best artist, so she figured a balloon would
be easy enough to draw.
"I had my sister and my dad help me draw
everything so it was awesome to work together
with them on that," Rocco said.
The book begins in just black and white, but
as the balloon travels around the world to new
places, it begins to see the world in a different way.
"As the balloon travels, it begins to see the
world in color, so the pictures go from black and
white to all color at the end," Rocco said.
This story was turned into a published children's
book, one that Rocco said she is so proud
of and excited about.
Rocco is now a junior at Stonehill College,
studying early-childhood education.
In her freshman year, she took another children's
literature course where she was required to
publish a children's book of her own.
Since she had already written her own story in
high school, Rocco worked with her professor to
get "A World From Above" published.
She said she had no idea Stonehill offered such
a similar course to what she took in high school,
but was so excited when she enrolled and found
At GUS, the entire
North Shore, including
every corner of our
23-acre campus,
is our classroom.
Where a rigorous
education looks different.
Pre-K through Grade 8 // gus.org
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