Six already completed

 By Don Rush

Some people go through their entire lives always wanting to write a book. At the age of 18, Oxford High School Senior Jason Lavender already has penned six.

“I have been a high school counselor for a number of years,” OHS’ Michael Brennan said. “I’ve known many high school students who have great dreams and aspirations, but to see what Jason has put together this far is very impressive.”

According to Jason, the books he has published so far have been books children can read, or be read to.

“In every book I have done so far I try to incorporate a moral lesson,” he said. “Especially in the first three. One was about sharing, one was about eating healthy and the other one was self acceptance. The other three are just stories.”

Jason is the youngest of two children to Matthew and Erin Lavender. His older sister is Avery. He remembers his Grandmother Lavender reading to him as a child.

“As a kid I always liked stories,” Jason said. “I especially liked drawing. Every drawing I made I wanted to include a story with them. I would spend time with my sister and I would draw. We had a notebook and a pencil, I would give the notebook to her and we would try to create a story of my drawing because I hated writing. Eventually I drew the Sad Giraffe, which would become the first story I made into a book. Then I got a tablet and I digitized it.”

His first book, The Sad Giraffe, he drew out before he was in middle school. “Then when I got my tablet during quarantine I digitized it. So, I had it for a long time before I digitized it.”

For his books, he comes up with an idea. Draws it, then using a stylus digitizes, he types out the words and then pastes them on the pictures. He self-published and printed his books on a publishing site called Amazon KDP.

“But currently I am looking for someone to contact me to publish these. I just need a publisher. They are not up on Amazon anymore, because they take away a huge amount of the profit. I only made like five cents a sale,” he said, adding the cost to print and publish was about $5 a book.

His other books are The Groundhog’s Home Tour, What Can The Hippo Eat, Bob The Pig’s Farm, The Easter Island Egg Hunt and Mr. Weather Rock. The latter two being for more mature young readers, he said.

“This is my favorite thing to do,” Jason said. “I’m naturally creative, so anytime I can put that into real life I am all for it. If anyone knows about publishing, please email me at DauntlessStoryBooks@gmail.com.”

He has already written out on paper the next book he’d like to get out, “It’s about the Anteater who can’t sleep.”

He is also created a website to sell his books and hopes to continue writing in the future. “I’d like to spread out and write chapter books and then graphic novels,” he said. The website is  DauntlessStoryBooks.com