Local author shares book

Cresco - “Prayer is the Super Power,” local author Jill Ferrie told students from Notre Dame Elementary. She let them ask questions, read her first book “I go with God” and answered more questions when she visited them on Oct. 4.

She was introduced to the kindergarten through second graders as someone who likes to write books, say prayers and talk to Jesus. Ferrie confirmed all of that as she talked with the kids.

She showed them a stuffed doll, Buddy, the main character in her book. “He was a gift from one of my children. We made sure Puffer [the fish] was in there, too!”

The students had relevent and great questions for the author. One child asked about the book itself. “I made this book. It was drawn by an illustrator and then painted and printed.”

Her book is about Buddy, who was feeling sick and asked God to make him feel better, which he did. Then Puffer felt sick, and Buddy prayed for him, too.

Does she plan to write another book? “I always have one going in my head. Things happen in our lives, and I have many characters to play off. In my next book, the characters will pray to get out of a pickle!”

While writing, Ferrie said she likes to rhyme. It makes it easier for kids to read and remember. She also brings music into her books, with help from her mother, a music teacher.

Surprisingly, although it is a children’s book, it took Ferrie five years to publish her first book. “I’d write a page, and then I’d change it. I kept practicing and showing it to others. The more you practice it becomes easier and easier,” she told the students. “It is the same as when you talk to God. He talks back. It gets easier to pray and listen.”

After she was pretty happy with her book, she needed an illustrator. 

 

Ferrie found one online. Muhammad Khaidir Syafei lives in Indonesia and they communicated by computer. Her son, Nicolas Pacheco, who graduated from Crestwood, was the book’s designer.

She said her favorite page was where Buddy became a Super Power through prayer. “It was important that someone would show that prayer is very powerful. We all have a cape and can pray to God,” she told the classes.

Ferrie gave some pointers to the young writers in the room. “When you write something, figure what you want to say and pick up a pencil. You have to have a clear message.” And if anyone runs into trouble, they can pray. “If we listen, God will put angel messages in your head.”

After the story, Ferrie gave each student a book mark, designed by Pacheco. She, her sisters and mom all punched a hole in it and threaded a ribbon through it as an act of love!

Jill met her husband, Dave Ferrie, when they attended elementary together in Wisconsin. They met up years later and married. They own Harvest Farms Campground, northeast of Cresco.

Jill is writing her books in the “First Reader” style, meaning they are for young children. “I wanted to reach kids at this age so they would learn to pray, so they would naturally turn to God. Since that’s the only way to go, why go anywhere else first?” Ferrie said. “It’s not a last resort, go there first!”

“I go with God,” which was published in June 2018, is available on Amazon, at Two Chicks in a Barn in Cresco, at Luther College Book Store and at Harvest Farm Campground