FERGUS – What began as a routine phone call to grandma, quickly blossomed into a world of adventure, danger and creativity.
With the help of her two grandmothers, 11-year-old Brynn Law embarked on a journey to create and publish her first novel, Lost But Not Alone.
The novel follows 11-year-old Bravery as she navigates friendships, grief, loss, happiness and the abundance of emotions and feelings of a pre-teen.
Bravery is described as a “true wilderness girl” and spends her summer exploring the surrounding wilderness of her Alaskan homestead.
The story, which came to fruition after a series of regular phone calls to grandma, also features characters “loosely based” on the important people in Law’s life.
“Every day her mom was working after school,” said Law’s maternal grandmother Jo Pearsall.
“They [Brynn and her siblings] were kind of bored and I had this lull at work of an hour at the end of the day where I really wasn’t doing anything so they would call me every day.”
After a while, Law asked her grandmother if she would read them a story when they called.
“I was gonna get a book and just start reading to them and I thought to myself, ‘I think on my lunch hour I’m going to start writing them a story,’” said Pearsall.
And that’s exactly what she did. Pearsall dedicated many hours to writing a story for her grandchildren and reading it to them over the phone.
“She would read it to us every single day,” said Law.
It was then that the young author pitched the idea of turning the story into a proper novel.
Pearsall agreed but under one condition: that the pair did it together.
Pearsall told the Advertiser she put Law in charge of the characters and the animals, as well as final say over whatever Pearsall wrote.
“I would put in a chunk of the story and then she would look at it and she would say yay or nay, add to it, we tweaked it together,” said Pearsall.
Bravery is based on Brynn, and as she ages so does the character.
“The character grows as Brynn grows,” said Pearsall.
“Brynn’s perspective and what she brings to the book is exactly what a girl her age would bring to the story because I’m not 12 … I don’t think that way, whereas she does.”
Once the novel was completed, the transcript was passed on to Law’s paternal grandmother Sharon Law, who created the illustrations that can be found scattered throughout the novel.
Once the illustrations were finished and the novel was complete, the trio began the hunt for a publisher, which yielded little success.
The novel sat for two years. It wasn’t until one fateful day when Pearsall purchased a raspberry bush off of Facebook Marketplace that the fate of the novel changed.
“I answered an ad on Marketplace one day for a raspberry bush,” said Pearsall.
“I invited her over and at that point she tells me that she is a published illustrator and has published a book.”
After a short conversation Pearsall’s new found friend, Colleen C. Coggins, offered to help with the cover for the book.
Once the cover was complete, the issue of finding a publisher was still a hindrance.
“I talked to Sharon … and her and I decided, who cares?” said Pearsall. “Let’s just do it [publish the book] because then it’ll be there for our grand kids.”
From there Pearsall, now retired, began the process of self publishing the novel.
According to Pearsall, it was important to Law to not include references to video games or cell phones.
Instead, the duo opted for a more “grass roots approach” to the story and focused entirely on “kids being kids” without technology.
Law said she didn’t want the story to be like most of the novels circulating today.
She didn’t want magic or talking animals, and she for sure didn’t want someone to “save the girl.”
After the success of the first novel, the trio is excited to announce a second novel is well underway.
“[We are] feverishly racing to get it done,” said Pearsall. “We are hoping for September.”
