Once Upon a Time...

            In order to start thinking about the story of my book, I had to research the history of Lovett’s involvement with Siempre Verde. In 1990, Bob Braddy, a Lovett science teacher, and his wife, Connie, traveled to Ecuador to study cloud forest ecology. While traveling through the Andean cloud forests, they came across a town called Santa Rosa. In the village, they found the local school in desperate need of repair. Coming home from their trip in Ecuador, Bob and Connie Braddy worked tirelessly to raise funds to rebuild the school. After helping the cloud forest community through the financial support of the school, Lovett purchased several hundred acres of primary cloud forest to create a protected preserve and establish a research center focused on conservation education. Reading through the history of this special place, I decided that I definitely want to include this history in my story. Since Bob Braddy played such an integral role in the establishment of Siempre Verde, I plan on portraying his character in my story. I also read a plethora of articles about Siempre Verde online and learned more about past students who visited the station.

            After my AP Physics C class, I sat down with pencil and started trying to get my ideas for the story on paper. I thought about all of the characters that I want to be in my book – Bob Braddy, Mr. Reynolds, Nelson and Mari, Dean, students, etc. I also toyed with the idea of having one main character to “lead” the reader around the station to show them the full “Siempre Verde experience.” If I wrote this type of a story, I would probably make my main character Nelson since he really runs the show at Siempre Verde. Although I spent a lot of time trying to come up with characters for the book, I spent the bulk of my time coming up with the overall storyline. I am finding that it is incredibly difficult to write a nonfiction children’s book that can both inform and captivate the reader. I am stuck between two storylines that I feel could work effectively to achieve both of these goals. First, I could write a story from the perspective of Nelson and show him leading a group of students around the lodge. This would probably be a more interesting story since I could make it more of a narrative rather than a fact book. Second, I could write an “A-Z” book for Siempre Verde and include all of the different things that have made my Siempre Verde experience so memorable. I am going to have a tough decision coming ahead!