AWARD-WINNING CHILDREN’S AUTHOR LAUNCHES NEW BOOK
THAT BENEFITS NATIONAL KIDS’ CHARITY
Alexandria LaFaye’s Newest Novel Explores Challenges of Growing Up
and Helps 10,000 Youngsters Do Same at KidsPeaceAPRIL 2009 -- In Alexandria LaFaye’s new novel, Water Steps, a young girl learns to overcome a traumatic childhood experience and eventually finds a new, safe, healthy and happy world filled with love. How perfectly fitting, then, that a portion of the proceeds from her latest creation should go to help children being helped to overcome traumas and crises at the national charity KidsPeace.
Ms. LaFaye, an award-winning writer of children’s books, chose KidsPeace because of its 126-year history of helping young people make their way through the many challenges and dangers of growing up.
“Your commitment to helping children is wonderful,” says LaFaye. “I am so glad that I chose KidsPeace as a charitable match for Water Steps. Yours is a story more people should know about.”
Like a child’s view of the world, the story is both realistic and fantastic, and creates a vivid and insightful story about a teenage girl, Kyna, and the importance of family ties and personal strength.
When Kyna’s parents announce that they have rented a summerhouse on Lake Champlain, Kyna’s heart fills with dread. As a child who witnessed the death of her family during a storm at sea, Kyna has a fear of water, which no amount of prodding from her adoptive, water-loving parents can alleviate. After arriving at the house, Kyna finds that the only other kid her age is Tylo, a boy neighbor obsessed with proving that silkies, animals similar to those in Loch Ness, inhabit the lake. To prove to Tylo that the silkies are merely a legend, Kyna must face her paralyzing fear of water in ways she never could have anticipated.
Water Steps masterfully combines elements of folklore and fantasy with a contemporary, realistic depiction of one girl’s struggle to overcome her fears and traumas of the past. Engaging and imaginative, Water Steps is a story for young readers who like adventures and surprise endings.
“The book is a delight and beautifully captures the pleasures, pain, and occasionally, terrors of childhood,” says KidsPeace President & CEO William Isemann. “Alexandria LaFaye deeply understands children and their feelings – something those who work with kids wish was more common. We are honored that Ms. LaFaye, who has done so much to enrich the lives of America’s children, has come to be counted as a friend of the children at KidsPeace. On behalf of the thousands of Kynas and Tylos we help to overcome crises every day, thank you!”
** Copies of Water Steps (Milkweed Editions, $6.95 softcover/$16.95 hardcover) can be purchased at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Borders, and Powell’s, or online at www.milkweed.org . A portion of the proceeds from the softcover printing will go to KidsPeace.
About the author
Alexandria LaFaye is the author of 10 books for young readers, including The Year of the Sawdust Man and Worth, which won the Scott O’Dell Award for Historical Fiction. LaFaye lives in Cabot, Arkansas, and teaches in the MFA programs at Hamline and Hollins Universities. Her website is alafayebooks@aol.com .
She is available for interview, book signings, and literacy events.
Early endorsements for “Water Steps”
“A. LaFaye's Water Steps is wonderful, in the most literal sense of the word: which is to say it is a book full of wonder, and wonders. It pulses with a love of nature and the natural world, a world too often lost to modern children. Rich with love and loss, longing and renewal, a bit of mystery and a touch of fantasy, it is a joy to read.”
—Bruce Coville
“Kyna’s struggles to take “water” (baby) steps and move through her fear will resonate with many kids who are wrestling overwhelming fears of their own. Kyna’s story is a satisfying journey to hope and understanding.”
—Booklist
KidsPeace is a 126-year-old national children’s crisis charity dedicated to giving hope, help, and healing to children facing crisis. With 50+ centers nationwide, KidsPeace directly helps thousands of children a day with life-saving treatment to overcome the crises of growing up. Supported by VIP leaders, including its national spokesperson and founder of the Memory Foundation Leeza Gibbons and child safety and self-esteem icon RETRO BILL, KidsPeace helps millions more each year through prevention and awareness campaigns designed to help America’s kids and parents avoid and overcome the kinds of crises that can strike any child – from disasters and personal traumas to family issues and life crises. KidsPeace was named “The Outstanding Organization” of its kind in the country by the American Association of Psychiatric Services for Children and was called “a prototype of what we need for all children everywhere” by the late, nationally renowned child and family expert, Dr. Lee Salk.
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For more information, contact KidsPeace Vice President Mark Stubis at 800-25-PEACE or mstubis@kidspeace.org .