An eight-year-old boy from Boise, Idaho self-published a graphic novel about occasions – but never expected the book to attract a large fan base in the U.S. and overseas.
Author Dillon Helbig, joined by his parents Alex and Susan, told “America’s Newsroom” Friday that he wrote the book, titled “The Adventures of Dillon Helbig’s Crismis,” because he “likes Christmas and decorations.”
“He wanted to get his story out there so all the kids can read his adventures,” his mother Susan told co-hosts Dana Perino and Bill Hemmer.
Perino remarked that Helbig’s journey to getting published “is a pretty interesting story.”
“He writes this graphic novel, draws the pictures about his own Christmas story and puts it on the library shelf. One of the librarians found it. And so they said ‘Oh this is kind of interesting’ and they added it to the catalog,” Perino said.
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During Christmas break, the second-grader penned the book filled with pictures of his story. The book begins with Dillion himself decorating a Christmas tree. The star on top of the tree explodes, and then he is sucked into a portal.
The portal takes Helbig back in time to the very first Thanksgiving.
Over just four days, Helbig filled in 81 pages of a journal. Then he went to Ada Community Library’s Lake Hazel Branch in Boise with his grandmother.
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Helbig was unsure how to get his book on the library shelf, so, the author planned to sneak past the librarians.
“I always be (sic) sneaky, like how I get chocolate,” KTVB-TV, according to a local FOX affiliate.
“There was a lot of librarians that I had to sneak past,” Helbig said, but ultimately prevailed and successfully slid his book onto a children’s picture-book shelf.
After secretly posting his book, Helbig’s graphic novel grew a fan base, according to Alex Hartman, the manager of Hazel Branch. Hartman told The New York Times that 56 people were on the waiting list to check it out by the end of January. The number had grown to 88 this week, according to KTVB.
Demand for Helbig’s graphic novel extends beyond the United States; the Idaho press reported that one of the librarians received inquiries for the boy’s book from The Netherlands and Bangladesh.
Dillon said there is a sequel in the works.
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Bill Hemmer said Friday that Helbig has wanted to publish a book since he was 5 and that the Ada Community Library gave Helbig an award for best young novelist.
“They created that category for him. You have a lot to be proud of,” Hemmer said.
