Jim Doti's and Lisa Mertins' planned book is about a first grader with a speech impediment who is asked by his teacher to appear in the class play, “The Elves and the Shoemaker.”
Although Jimmy is worried that his classmates will taunt him because of his difficulty in pronouncing words correctly, the play gives him an opportunity to confront his fears.
Lisa Mertins and I both had speech impediments as youngsters, so this autobiographical story is very personal for us. We hope it will resonate with children as well as adults who face challenges in their lives and are sometimes forced to confront them.
James (Jimmy) Doti is the son of Italian immigrants. His mother was a milliner. His father worked for nearly 60 years as a shoe salesman. Although his father was not formally educated (he quit school to go to work at the age of 15), he read a lot and instilled in his children a love of books. And hardly a day went by when they weren’t reminded to do well in school so they could go on to college.
Jimmy was a good student, but in his early years of grammar school, he had to work hard to overcome a speech impediment. He ultimately earned a Ph.D. in economics at the University of Chicago and now serves as president and Donald Bren Distinguished Chair of Business and Economics at Chapman University in Orange, California.
This is Jim Doti's second children's book. His first, A Christmas Adventure in Little Italy, also a collaboration with Lisa Mertins, was published in 2010. It is now in its second printing and is also available in a read-to-me version for iPad.
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Lisa Mertins is a career illustrator, having worked on newspaper staffs and as a freelance artist for over 25 years. She has worked on six children's books and has written one herself.
She is currently diversified over many art disciplines from printmaking and ceramics to traditional and computer generated illustration.
Lisa lives with her family and her animals including chickens, horses dogs and cats in southern California. You can visit her website to see her work at lisamertins.com
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