Needham Teacher Publishes Children's Book

third grade teacher Shelly Santaniello has always been interested in two things: writing and history. So last year, knowing that Needham would be celebrating its 300th anniversary, she came up with an idea to write a children’s book about the history of the town where she lives and works. The idea came to a fruition last month when "Tommy’s Needham Rocket" was published.

“I was jumping for joy,” Santaniello said. “It’s very exciting to get published.”

While the New Jersey native has had articles published in teacher’s magazines, as well as poetry in children’s magazines, this is the first book she has written.

The idea came about because teaching about local town history is part of the third grade curriculum, and there really wasn’t anything written recently that seemed to be geared toward kids, Santaniello said. She thought she could write something that would be fun for the kids to read.

The book is about a boy named Tommy who builds a float for the ; however, when he rides the float, it turns out to be a time-traveling device. Tommy travels back to 1680 to the original signing of the land for Needham. He also travels to two events in the 18th century, two events in the 19th century and one event in the 20th century.

Santaniello worked with self-publishing company Outskirts Press to complete her book, using an in-house illustrator to help bring Tommy's story to life on the page.

The entire process to get this book published took about a year, according to Santaniello. She made an outline to guide herself through the writing process and then did some research. The original rough draft took about two months to complete. She then had some people look it over, specifically Kathy Martell and Char Sidell of the  for helping to clarify some of the specifics in terms of the history.

"Tommy’s Needham Rocket" will be used this year as part of the third grade unit on Needham history. They will also be using some teacher editions and SMART Board Notebooks to go along with the teaching of the book.

Santaniello said she has another manuscript she’s trying to get published that she has already sent out and is waiting to hear back about.

Readers may purchase “Tommy’s Needham Rocket” online at amazon.com or barnesandnoble.com or locally at , 1451 Highland Ave.