12/15/22
By Kevin Taylor
Alma Schools
By his own account, Cole Chanthaseny can’t help but smile every time he enters the Alma Middle School Library. There, displayed for all to see, is a book he and classmates Jake Johnson and Barrett Curd helped bring to life.
“Silly Goose” will live on forever.
The book, which is 26 glorious pages long with beautiful illustrations by Johnson’s aunt, former Alma softball player Payton Allen, came about by complete accident.
Back in 2019, when the trio were fourth graders in Mrs. Erin Reeves’ class, they wrote two words on a balloon — Silly Goose.
“That’s when ‘Silly Goose’ started,” Curd said. “In Mrs. Reeves' class, we were playing a game with balloons and I got out my marker and I just drew a character on there, and I called it ‘Silly Goose.’
“That just kind of became the new thing.”
“He became a big part of our lives,” Johnson said. “I said, ‘Hey, let’s write a book about him.’ We didn’t think it would go anywhere, but we just wanted to make a little book.”
Johnson said the group began to formulate a plan in December of 2021. “It was just about this time a year ago,” he said.
Almost eleven months later, the dream became a reality.”
“Our classmates think it’s crazy that we wrote a book,” Johnson said. “The book, it’s a long process. They kept asking when it was coming out. When it came out, they were all super excited and wanted to read it.”
Curd said one of his classmates teased him about the book, and he had a quick comeback.
“One of my classmates said, ‘Oh, that Silly Goose book?’ I said, ‘What book did you publish?’
“I said, yes, exactly.”
“I didn’t really expect anything to go farther than the balloon did, really,” Chanthaseny said. “I didn’t expect us to get this far. From writing on a balloon to creating an entire book.”
Johnson said giggles soon turned to laughing out loud as the book began to take shape. “We laughed every time we wrote something,” he said. “We were trying to make up a word to describe ‘Boss Duck.’ That was a lot of fun.”
The group credits their fourth-grade teacher for helping influence them.
“She was a big influence,” Johnson said.
“She taught us to read and that made us like reading even more,” Curd said. “The main person that helped us was Jessica Jernigan. She’s an author, too.”
Jernigan said the initial run of 1,500 books and stickers cost about $3,500.
“She kind of set the platform by putting us on her website,” Chanthaseny said. “She has a book publishing website.”
Every successful book needs a sequel, right?
“We’re actually working on a second book,” Johnson said. “It’s going to be about a Turkey and Silly Goose and him having a sleepover.”
The trio hopes to get that book out in the next year or so. “It’s a process,” Johnson said.