Three years ago, we moved to Canada.
We live in a two-floor townhouse. Our family lives upstairs, and at that time, another family lived in the apartment below us. They had two children—a boy and a girl.
At first, we were simply neighbors.
“Hello.”
“How are you?”
“How was your day?”
The usual conversations between people who share an address but live separate lives.
Then I wrote Vico’s Christmas Storybook.
That Christmas, I decided to give our neighbors a copy as a gift for their children. I rang their doorbell, the father opened the door, and I handed him the book.
“I wrote this,” I explained.
He looked surprised, thanked me, and took it.
A couple of days later, they left a small Christmas gift for my son. It was such a kind gesture.
Not long after that, I saw them again. They told me how much they enjoyed the book.
I was happy, of course.
But at the time, I thought that was the end of the story.
I was wrong.
The following year, my son and their children started attending the same school. Their mother and I often found ourselves waiting together for the school bus.
One day, while we were talking, she asked me something.
“How did you decide to write a book? Especially a children’s book?”
So I told her.
I explained that Vico’s Christmas Storybook was inspired by my son. That Vico was actually him. That many of the stories inside were inspired by moments from our own family life, with just a little Christmas magic added.
Then she told me something I was completely unprepared to hear.
Her eight-year-old son was fascinated that he knew a real author.
He loved reading, and somehow, knowing the person who had written one of the books on his shelf had changed something for him.
He told his parents that he wanted to write a book too.
Because of my book.
Because of me.
I didn’t know what to say.
Then his mother smiled and added:
“He already started writing.”
That was the moment my eyes filled with tears.
An eight-year-old boy downstairs had picked up a pencil because a book from upstairs had made him believe that writing one was possible.
I had never imagined that when I started writing Vico’s Christmas Storybook.
Later, before the family moved away, I gave them my other two books, Vico’s Big City Storybook and The Christmas Card Helper.
I still remember watching that boy as he received them.
His eyes sparkled like little diamonds.
Of all the things that have happened since I became an author, that moment remains one of the most precious.
Months ago, I wrote a post with a title:
“The World Doesn’t Need Another Book… But Someone Needs Yours.”
Now I understand those words differently.
Maybe someone needs your book because it will make them smile.
Maybe because they will recognize their own family inside its pages.
Maybe because they need comfort, hope, laughter, or a little Christmas magic.
Or maybe an eight-year-old child will hold it in his hands, look at the person who wrote it, and suddenly think:
I could write one too.
Sometimes we never know where our words will travel.
Sometimes they don’t have to travel very far at all.
Sometimes they only need to go downstairs.
GK
