Like most 9-year-old boys, Solomon Donoho of Lincoln loves playing video games with his brothers or going on hikes with his family and listening to fresh cuts by DJ Marshmello.
Unlike other kids his age, he’s currently writing his second book.
In May he released “The Legend of DJ Awesome,” a chapter book illustrated by Nina Vondran about a superhero, who’s also a DJ and saves his town from bad guys. Once he finished the book, he set a goal of getting the book into the hands of at least 1,000 kids who may not be able to afford it.
“Books are kind of expensive, so I wanted to do something to let kids not have to buy books too,” he said.
Having a home library can yield positive results for kids. In 2018, Scholastic.com published an article that evaluated two studies on how having books at home boosted not only children’s reading skills but their math skills too.
For Solomon that’s already the case. His mom is an author and the owner of Teddyfly.com small press and book coaching company.
“She’s made many books, and I got dragged to lots of farmers markets [to promote her books] and then I wanted to make something of my own,” he explained.
Of her three sons, Nicole Donoho said that Solomon was the most interested in storytelling.
“Solomon’s my only one that loves reading — he devours books — and so I was happy about that,” Nicole said. “I never pushed him to be an author or said ‘Sit down and write,’ or anything. He just has an amazing imagination.”
She started Teddyfly in 2019 as a way to publish her own work, then in 2021 she began publishing other authors. Most of the books available on Teddyfly are kid’s picture books, but there’s also fiction and nonfiction.
“I had worked for publishing consultants and other publishing presses, and I just didn’t like the model,” she said. “I didn’t think that it served authors well, and I wanted a space that authors could trust. [Teddyfly] has been created by a writer for writers.”
WRITING PROCESS
Nicole Donoho said there were signs that Solomon would follow in her footsteps. For instance, he’s always trying to guess what will happen next in movies, and he loves creating Minecraft adventures for his older brothers, even if they figure out the puzzles too fast.
When Solomon was in third grade, Nicole said that he came to her with pictures that he drew and ideas for the book. She treated him just as she would her clients and told him that she wouldn’t write the book for him, but she would type it as he dictated the story to her.
“He had the whole first chapter fleshed out, and then he had pictures with it and everything,” she said. His ideas came so fast that she could tell he was getting frustrated.
“He had a lot of characters and all the action points happening, it was really neat,” she said.
Solomon didn’t lean on his mom so much for character development or plot for “The Legend of DJ Awesome,” she said.
There was only one instance where he needed coaching, she said. He was bored with a character and decided to have DJ Awesome kill him off. His brothers, not mom, helped him see reason — good guys don’t kill.
“Once his brother told him that you can’t have a good guy kill someone, that’s not OK, he ended up sending them to jail,” she said.
Nicole said Solomon also received positive reinforcement from his teacher Miss Mitchell at Lincoln Middle School while writing the book. Mitchell had him give a presentation in her class once the book was published.
“And she bought my book!” Solomon said.
So far this summer the Donohos have set up booths at the Prairie Grove Farmers Market, Pearl’s Books and City Park in Fayetteville where they sold paperback and hardback versions of the book and accepted donations for Solomon’s book drive.
BOOK DRIVE
Nicole said that Solomon wanted to sell his books for just $2 a piece so that everyone could get a book.
“We had to have a little business meeting about how business works and the cost of goods,” she said. Instead, she encouraged him to do a book drive.
Last year, Nicole hosted a book drive that allowed her to give away 80 copies of the book, “Labels, Who Do You See?,” a simple book for kindergartners that teaches kids there’s more to others than meets the eye.
She got the idea for a book drive after leading a storytelling workshop for kids at public libraries in Rogers, Farmington and Prairie Grove. She’s always interested in how kids respond to stories.
“It was just neat to see them having that opportunity to articulate their thoughts and build their confidence through what the story was inside of them,” she said. “Once I saw how just how excited they were about books, I was just like, ‘I want to get books into the hands of as many kids as I can.'”
For her workshops, Donoho helps young authors learn how to describe and develop characters and develop a plot.
“Kids have amazing imaginations, and I love the stories that they come up with,” she said, admitting that she’s the one who included a “Write Your Own Adventure,” in the back of “The Legend of DJ Awesome” to help other kids — and parents — develop storytelling skills at home.
Just like she did for her book drive, Donoho told Solomon that they needed to set a goal of how many books they wanted to raise and when to end the book drive.
Solomon told her that he wanted to collect 1,000 before schools start this August.
“I was like, ‘Oh, okay, why not?” she said with a laugh. They set their deadline for Aug. 17 and found many ways for people to help out through sponsorships. Since they do not have a nonprofit, so they are sponsoring the cost of the book. “For every $5 that is given to the book drive, we’re able to donate one book to kids at the local schools.”
Nicole said a friend suggested that they also set up a GoFundMe to help with costs since some are more familiar with the platform.
Currently, they have raised enough to distribute 334 of copies of “The Legend of DJ Awesome” to third-grade students at Lincoln Elementary School, fifth-graders at West Fork Middle School, third and fourth-graders at West Fork Elementary and to students in K8 Connect in Springdale.
It’s not all work and no play for Solomon this summer. He’s trying to convince the family to get a cat while checking out new games on Roblox — a digital gaming platform — and creating worlds in Minecraft, a video game that allows players to create worlds and games of their own within its pixelated universe. Nicole said they might do another pop-up at Prairie Grove Farmer’s Market if it doesn’t interfere with Solomon’s summer camp.
Find out more about the book drive, “The Legend of DJ Awesome,” and more at teddyfly.com.
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AT A GLANCE
Nine-year old Lincoln author Solomon Donoho wants to share his book, “The Legend of DJ Awesome,” with area kids and is raising money for a book drive to give away 1,000 copies before school starts in August.
“The Legend of DJ Awesome” is the story of a super hero and DJ who saves his hometown — Music City — from the villainous Death Man and other bad guys “like he’s conducting a symphony of bravery and beats,” according to the book’s description
Find copies or donate to the drive at teddyfly.com.
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See it here
Solomon Donoho talks about his book, “The Legend of DJ Awesome,” on the Northest Arkansas Democrat-Gazette YouTube page.
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