Branching Out With Books, a program at St. Regis Mohawk School, may be wrapping up this week, but it was able to do something extraordinary-publish a book of students writing and illustrations. Students from St. Lawrence University’s Environmental Perceptions and Indigenous Knowledge course “wanted to encourage more reading and writing in a fun way,” said Kelsey Colpitts, one of the students working with the kids. In order to do this, the SLU students had the kids each create a page in the book, and when it was finished it was sent off to be published. Stories had accompanying illustrations provided by the authors. The Branching Out With Books program ran for 8 weeks and each class was an hour and a half, over which the authors worked on their pages.

Finished and ready for the publisher, Konwakeri Martin’s picture and story are shown; she is soon to be a published author.

Each student will get a copy of their work in the future after it is published.

Along with Colpitts, Michaela Lewis and Cullen Lapointe were also present helping the kids work on their submissions.

The students definitely weren’t shy either. Ashleigh Cook told me, “We’re Awesome,” while Alexis Seymour said, “This whole group was epically epic!”

The group was proud of their accomplishment as they well should be.