Former Teacher, Local Student Team Up to Publish Children’s Book

For a former St. Joe’s art teacher, the idea for a symmetry lesson ended in a published children’s book.

Erica Elemes teamed up with her former student, Rebecca Koerner, to publish “A Curious Christmas”.

Koerner, a current Shanley freshman, drew the illustrations.

The book is about an elf who hides in Santa’s sleigh on Christmas.

The pair visited classrooms at their old school and read to students.

Elemes now lives in Wisconsin, but made a special trip to visit the school where the idea began.

“She wants to be an illustrator, and so we kind of just turned it into like a project based learning experience where I taught Becca what it is to be an illustrator,” said Elemes. “What’s involved going through and story boarding.

“A Curious Christmas” is available at Barnes and Noble as well as Amazon.