School assignment spurs Floral Park student Mythreyi Pillai to write book, "Magic in the Door"
Mythreyi Pillai, a sixth-grader at John Lewis Childs School, recently self-published a children’s book titled “Magic in the Door.” Credit: Floral Park-Bellerose School Dis
A Floral Park student has self-published a children’s book about a girl and her adventures with a supernatural door in her family’s new house.
Mythreyi Pillai, a sixth-grader at John Lewis Childs School, began writing the story during her summer break after third grade, and she eventually turned it into an 84-page book titled “Magic in the Door.” She is currently working on a sequel to the book.
Mythreyi said she was inspired to pen the original work, which she published through Amazon, as the result of a school assignment to create fictional stories based on a small prompt. The book’s illustrations were created by Bhagath Premdeep, a 16-year-old boy living in India who is the son of a friend of Mythreyi’s mother.
“I definitely am really relieved, because it took so much time to actually create the book,” said Mythreyi, who estimates having worked on the story for about 1½ years. “I feel like other kids would enjoy it because it tells the type of fictional story that might be appealing to them, and it has a bunch of plot twists and a bunch of comedic side stories, too.”
Mythreyi, 11, plays the flute in school and is a member of her school’s stage crew and Drama Club. She also plays tennis outside of school and has volunteered at her local library and with a local chapter of Mahima, a nonprofit that strives to enrich the lives of people who follow the Hindu religion.
Michael R. Ebert is an education researcher and has worked for Newsday in various capacities since 2003. He was part of an 11-person team named as 2008 Pulitzer Prize finalists for investigative coverage of the LIRR's platform safety issues.
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