Words and Illustrations by . . .

As a child, I loved to write books. I was always stapling pieces of paper together and writing my latest story down, complete with illustrations. Katelee also loves to imagine and tell new stories. When she pretend plays with her dolls or animals, she always use the phrases, "He said," or "She shouted!" or "They all gasped," and so forth. Even when she is playing by herself, she is using the words to tell a story. It is really cute.

So the other day, I asked her if she wanted to write her own book. She was sooo enthusiastic about the idea! She told the story, and I wrote the words exactly as they came out of her mouth as quickly as I could. Then she drew the illustrations. I'm frustrated that I can't get the images to turn the right direction, so if you could like to see her pictures at the right angle, you're going to have to kink your neck.

She named her story, "Princess Analiese" after the princess from the Barbie and the Pauper movie. :)

Once upon a time there was a princess who lived in a castle. Her King and Queen were wanting to send her away, but she was very afraid.

So instead she had a camp-out in her bedroom. She had a lamb and the princess was so excited cause her lamb had a birthday tomorrow!

She had a birthday the next day after her lamb. She really wanted her freckles to grow. So the King and Queen wanted to send her away because she wanted to play with her friends and whined when it was time to clean up.

(Note: At this point she put on her whiniest voice and proceeded to really whine about having to clean up. Unfortunately, I could not convey this quickly enough or well enough in words to do it justice, so I just left it out of the book. But it was some amazing whining!)

She didn't want to help clean up. So the Queen was sad and didn't want to send her away because she loved her pretty princess. The King sent her away but the queen made her come back.

(Imagine all the voices on this part; Katelee is really good at making the voices!)

"I don't want to send her away! She's my pretty, pretty princess!" said the Queen. "Well, I guess you can stay," said the King. Then the princess said, "Where is my bed going to be?"

"Upstairs where you used to sleep," said the King. The King and Queen didn't have a bed, so they slept there, too. The King loved the princess.

The End.