Tierra Rosa Elementary School (TRES) has a budding author in their midst! Let’s chat with Eva Ropele, a fourth grader at TRES about her love of reading and how she began writing her own book.

Eva Ropele’s big sister Stella, an eighth grader at Santa Rita Middle School, began reading the “Wings of Fire” series by Tui T. Sutherland and shared her love of the books with her younger sister. Eva was hooked immediately and her imagination took over drawing the characters in the books and crafting her own dragonet tales.

If you aren’t familiar with “Wings of Fire,” it is a 15 book series that includes chapter books and graphic novels. A New York Times bestseller, the book tells the story of the dragon tribes in the region of Pyrrhia. According to a prophecy, five dragonets will end the bloodshed and choose a new queen. When some dragons discover the truth about their unusual, secret upbringing, they might choose freedom over fate -- and find a way to save their world in their own way.

When Eva began reading the series last year, her excitement about “Wings of Fire” spilled over into her third grade classroom. Her third grade teacher, Ms. Elizabeth Diener shared, “Eva’s creativity and contagious passion for reading, helped to further her peers' interest in reading and writing.” To have time together, Eva created a small book club of her friends who met during lunch or recess and shared what they were reading. Those conversations turned into them creating their own dragonets and making up adventures for them. This led to Eva putting a pencil on paper and starting her own book, “Wings of Fire: The Gifted Dragonets”. According to Diener, because of her passion for the books, other students began to read the series and were able to talk about the plot points, events and the exciting dragon stories.

As fourth graders now, the book club meets during recess and works on their original dragon characters. Each of her friends have picked a type of dragon and together they are bringing them to life! When recess doesn’t work, they have Facetime calls together. To date, Eva has written more than 60 pages of her book and she keeps the text along with many dragon drawings in her three ring binder. She hopes to share her book as part of a three-book series with her friends and family. After “Wings of Fire: The Gifted Dragonets”, she has plans for follow-up books entitled “Tails of Torture” and “Wings of Fury” and already has the ending planned out.

Eva’s Mom, Tiffany, said her family has always enjoyed reading books and that she identified that Eva was an advanced reader early on. As you can imagine, her favorite subject is reading and she wants to be an author when she grows up. She loves her school, her Dad’s homemade pizza and a hamburger “plain and dry” with a side of broccoli.