This year Stephanie Hopkins is checking off a major life goal, not for herself, but for her late mother. She self-published a children’s book that her mother, Pam Carnation, wrote about her when she was a little girl. Carnation tried to get the book published in the 90s without success.
The book, “The Rat Fairies,” tells the story of a little girl who hates to have her hair brushed and the rat fairies who tangle up her hair each night. It was after the millionth battle in front of the bathroom mirror that Carnation was inspired to write her story.
“Because I was driving her crazy,” Hopkins said. “I wanted long hair so badly and I remember her brushing my hair and her being so frustrated and her saying, ‘you should just cut your hair!’”
Carnation enjoyed drawing, Hopkins said, and wrote and illustrated the first version of the book for fun. Several years later, someone suggested she try to get it published.
“Back then, there was no internet,” Hopkins said. “She went to the library and got one of the big books that said ‘how to get your book published.’”
Carnation redid the illustrations in color and sent off 15 or 20 copies in manila envelopes to publishers all over the country. She received a couple of rejection letters and didn’t hear back from the rest.
“It was kind of a Hail Mary to see if it would actually work, but it was a bummer for me to see that she had put so much time and effort into it,” Hopkins said.
After Carnation died in 2006, Hopkins gathered up the drafts of the book her mother had made in a folder. “Of all the things that she has, this is the most of value to me, Hopkins said. “So that was the thing that I wanted the most.”
Hopkins kept thinking about how to get the book published. At some point, an author friend explained that the publishers would probably want to do their own illustrations. That worried Hopkins, who wanted to have some say in how the book turned out. And then her father-in-law suggested self-publishing.
Hopkins found an illustrator, Natalie Alves, to expand upon her mother’s drawings, and launched a Kickstarter campaign last November. At the last minute, a large donation came in and the project was funded. Now the final books are printed and headed to Healdsburg, where they’ll be available for purchase at Copperfield’s.
Both Hopkins and her mother, whose maiden name was Albini, grew up in Healdsburg on Brown Street. Carnation was born with a heart defect and doctors initially said she wouldn’t live past age three. Instead she lived to 59, worked as a dental assistant for Dr. Michael Neal and was able to raise Stephanie, whom she adopted at age 18 months when she got married.
“Especially for local people who might even know my mom, or know the family, it will be like, oh my gosh, I know who Stephie is,” Hopkins said. “I want people to remember my mom and I feel like doing this permanently puts her somewhere special. Instead of this sitting in my house and no one else knowing it even exists.”
