Kayla Parlin (Shauna Vs. The Ten Toed Freaks) -Capstone

Creating my capstone was a challenge, but one that I powered through. The process involved many interviews—one involving an author, others from students, Instagram, and a plethora of books. I made myself a schedule to work on the book, which included three hours a week of writing and two mentor meetings a month with my capstone mentor. All of which led me to be successful in completing my capstone on time. My final product is a novel about a Black teenage Mer and her life as she is shoved into a mission to save her city, Resirea. The main character, Shauna, is an awkward-unlikely hero. What I learned by creating my capstone was how prevalent racism is throughout literature. Despite many books having characters of color, many of the people I interviewed as part of my research for my capstone reported that there weren’t any characters that they related to nor any main characters that were people of color. Although there is a rise in people of color in books now, I wanted to write my book in a way to not make it centered around racism or anything that children of color have to shoulder on a regular basis. I chose to do this as a way to have a fun escape from reality that kids could see themselves in. All in all, I created my capstone with the purpose of bringing entertainment and joy to children of color at a time when it is desperately needed.