AN ANGEL Imperfect Glori serves imperfect kids

By Gaye Bunderson

Talking about her own youthful years, Drury stated: “My parents sacrificed, scrimped, and saved so we [she and her siblings] could attend private Catholic schools from first grade through high school. Tuition for private schools certainly put a dent in their family finances.

Acharming kids’ book about an angel runs a little counterintuitive to how we usually think about the heavenly beings. The young angel-intraining in the book “An Angel Named Glori,” written by local author Roxanne Drury, is lovably flawed and is in the process of learning the job she will ultimately be assigned: watching out for and helping earthly children.

Glori is imperfect for a purpose –because all earthly beings need to learn to like themselves, flaws and all. Drury wrote the book for children as a way of telling them they’re amazing just as they are.

“The story idea came to me around 2014,” Drury said. New to the world of writing, she attended a writers’ conference to see what she could learn. “I would say to people at the conference, ‘I wrote this story – would you critique it?’ I was eager to hear their thoughts. I wanted to write the story and wanted it to be the best it could be.”

Drury continued, “I got praise for the story. But some people asked me, ‘Why does Glori have to be an angel?’”

She had an answer for that: “Because angels are God’s messengers, and their service is to help people. And I wanted Glori to be an angel because I needed an angel as a child.”

“Providing my brothers and me with a good education was always a priority and took precedence over having new store-bought clothing, thus we wore hand-me-downs. My mother worked full-time in a printing shop and also had a second job typing envelopes, just so we could attend private schools and I am so grateful for that.”

Many children today with working parents doing the best they can for their kids may feel some of the feelings Drury felt back then: occasional loneliness, responsibilities for herself and her brothers, and a sense of not fitting in sometimes because money was tight and trendy clothes weren’t in the budget.

Young people are often self-conscious about their appearance, and Drury said that even being a bit taller than everyone else can make them feel out of place among their peers. In fact, sometimes, many people of all ages feel just a bit different from everyone else, and being different is all right. “If we were all the same how boring would life be, right?” Drury asked.

Even the angel Glori is different from others. As it says in the wonderfully illustrated book with artwork by Marcy Petricig Braasch: “Glori is a little taller, a little louder, a little clumsier and she is just a little, well, ok...maybe a LOT messier than most angels. Glori is oneof-a-kind.”

Despite all that, Glori is certainly not unloved, and there’s a message in that for readers – especially girls, for whom the book was chiefly written.

“Every girl wants to know she’s loved and accepted,” Drury said. “Every girl wants her parents and others to know she needs to feel: loved, valued, okay, seen, heard, known, and accepted.”

At the back of the book are topics parents and children may discuss together. “When parents are reading a book to a child, they have a captive audience. Parents – or grandparents – can continue the conversation after they have read the book. I like children to think about what they’ve heard, and think about the words,” said Drury.

Many children share the same common feelings. Drury, who is a retired Christian preschool teacher and has worked in children’s ministry for over 45 years, said she’d hear children say, “I’m not good enough” or “I can’t do it.”

“They all need to hear the encouraging words, ‘Yes you can’,” she said. “We do our children a disservice when we do everything for them. It is our job to help them help themselves.”

But she also firmly believes children must be allowed to fail. “Failing,” she stressed, “is also okay. Not every kid should get a trophy. They must be allowed to fail, then you can ask them, ‘What lesson did you learn? What can you do differently next time?’ They have to learn those life lessons. Success and failure are part of life and we need to prepare children to accept and learn from both.”

Glori even occasionally grumbles, and when asked if it’s okay to grumble, Drury replied, after some thought, “You can’t deny those feelings. Feelings are okay, but how do you respond to them?”

The best thing about Glori? “She’s okay just the way she is; she’s learning and growing.”

That’s the message Drury wants to impart to her young readers because feelings are real and everyone exists in their own unique set of circumstances and everyone has acceptable imperfections.

At 70, Drury is the mother of three grown sons and a daughter; she also has six grandchildren, including five girls and a boy.

“An Angel Named Glori” is the first book in a series, and the next book will be available soon; this one is about a boy that Glori is sent to serve. The boy is not handling change well because his family is moving. Glori realizes she recently moved too, having just come from heaven to Earth, and she can empathize with her new earthly friend. For more information, contact Roxanne Drury at glorylandbooks@gmail.com or visit her on the website www.glorylandbooks.com.