Snowstorming ideas
By ROBERT LINNEHAN
The Cherry Hill Sun
10/10/2010

Someone once said, “Write what you know,” and local author Laura Wieland has taken that to heart as she celebrates her newly published children’s story, “The Magic Igloo.”

Wieland, a local stay at home mom, based her first published book on her experiences with her two children. Watching Hunter, 8, and Kristin, 3, play in her backyard last year during a snow storm gave her the idea for “The Magic Igloo,” and less than a year later readers can purchase the book on Amazon.com.

“I do hope to continue publishing more children’s books and sharing my experiences with two energetic kids,” she said. “I get most of my motivation and ideas from my two children and watching them interact and play.”

Wieland had her story published by Create Space, an independent publishing company that is also selling her book online. The company allows writers to self publish their own work and sell them on their Web site.

The children’s story, she said, is about a brother and a sister home from school one day during a snowstorm and talking about what they should do during their day off. The boy, Mikey, tells his sister Gracie that he’ll construct a magic igloo where he can live and have all of the cookies, cocoa, and toys that his heart desires.

The two go outside to play and all of a sudden Mikey finds himself in the igloo he described to his sister. It’s filled with toys, all the food he can eat, candy, but to his dismay he finds that he is alone. After playing for a while and eating too much, he leaves the igloo and finds that he is standing outside in the dark, alone from his family.

He begins to cry into his mittens, but then feels his sister tugging on his coat and asking him to make a snow angel. He’s back in his own world and the book ends with his mother calling them both inside for hot chocolate.

The book helps children learn a good lesson about excess and the value of family, Wieland said.

“It’s about the dangers of excess and enjoying what you have, instead of desiring what you don’t have. I’ve been writing for years, but I’ve never gone forward with getting things published, this is my first book,” she said. “I have two young children, a boy and a girl, and I got the idea from a snow day last year. They were building a fort and I started to jot down some ideas. Children who have read the book seem to enjoy it a lot so far.”

She contacted an art student friend, Debra Eve Greenblatt, who provided all of the illustrations for the book.

Wieland will be reading her story for children at Johnson Elementary School on Monday, Jan. 3 at 1:15 p.m. Readings are also going to be scheduled at Stockton Elementary School and the Cold Spring Harbor Library in Long Island for January, Wieland said.

People can purchase the 26-page children’s book at amazon.com or at Wieland’s Web site at createspace.com/3461915.