Published: September 26, 2007 05:57 pm            

ZCHS student publishes book

When someone would ask Zionsville Community High School junior Calesse Cardosi, 16, what she had been up to lately, she would just reach into her bag and pull out a book.

“Hey I have something really cool to show you,” she would say.

She would hand them the book and wait for a look of shock when they saw her name on it.

Cardosi is just as surprised at her success as the author of “The Gifts”.

The book is an adventure fantasy for pre-teens and teens. The hero of the story, Zak Fredrickson, is kidnapped and taken to a mysterious island where he uses his gifts to try to help the other children on the island escape.

“It was really cool to hold it in my hand, and say ‘I wrote this. This is mine. This is my book,’” Cardosi said.

Her book, published by HPH Publishing, will be available Sept. 29, and a book launch event will run from 7 p.m. to 9 p.m. Oct. 12, at the Borders Bookstore in Carmel, 2381 Pointe Parkway.

A portion of every book published by HPH goes towards charity. Twenty-five percent of the royalties from “The Gifts” will be donated to Compassion International, a Christian organization that educates and feeds children, and First Book, a charity that gives books to low-income families.

Cardosi began writing the book when she was 13 years old, while living in San Diego. She said it took slightly less than a year to finish writing.

She said she loves to write and, before this book, she had written many poems and short stories. She would start the stories, but inevitably she should get stuck and the ideas would stop coming. The handwritten story in her notebook that would become “The Gifts” was the first story in which she was able to complete a full plot.

“I just kept having these ideas and it led to a story,” she said.

But Cardosi wanted to do more than just tell a story, she also wanted to incorporate a lesson into the book, she said. Religion is a large part of Cardosi’s life, and that influence is evident in her book.

Her main character uses his spiritual gifts while trying to get off the island, and he must rely on God to solve problems, she said.

Editor-in-Chief of HPH Publishing, Franchee Harmon, said what drew her to the book was the way it discussed the issue of religion “without throwing it up in your face.”

She said the story teaches a lesson about religious extremism and its impact on children.

“I thought it was very interesting that someone at such a young age is thinking about and raising such thoughtful questions,” Harmon said.

Cardosi, like the hero in the book, has found herself in many strange places during her life. She was born in Chicago; when she moved to Zionsville in the summer of 2006, it was the closest she had lived to her hometown since she was six years old, she said.

Her father works in airport construction, and she has lived in Athens, Greece, San Diego and Abu Dhabi in the United Arab Emirates.

“I have had many interesting experiences traveling to other countries ... It has given me a lot of ideas,” she said.

Cardosi doesn’t think she wants to write novels for a living.

“Its not really a very reliable job unless you are really famous,” she said.

She would like to do something with writing though, maybe journalism or teaching, she said. But she continues to write even though she isn’t pursuing it as a career.

She has finished three other books and is three-fourths of the way done with a fourth, she said. She doesn’t know if or when she will try to publish any of them.

Before she ever finishes writing one book, she always gets an idea for another one. She starts writing about her new idea and lets the other finished manuscript sit idle.

“Editing is the boring part,” she said.

        

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