Sarasota Herald-Tribune
While some children want extra allowance money or maybe a new video game for good grades, 9-year-old Ry’Ael Holmes wanted only one thing as a reward for a successful report card: to write and publish a book.
When she took home straight A’s to her mother, Jennifer Robinson, she got her wish, and “Small Tales From Ry’Ael: A Series of Short Stories (Volume 1)” was born.
The 9-year-old author read her collection of five short stories Thursday as part of National Summer Learning Day to rising kindergarteners, first-graders and second-graders at Emma E. Booker Elementary. The students are enrolled in the Summer Learning Academy, a free six-week Monday-through-Thursday program in which students spend their summer learning and working on skills for the upcoming school year to prevent the dreaded “summer slide,” the tendency for students to lose some of the achievement gained during the previous school year.