'Eggs-actly' right ending

A local author's children's story in Highlights mixes her science background with her current calling.

By Gail Diederich, Times Correspondent
Published March 11, 2008

ADVERTISEMENT [Gail Diederich | Special to the Times] Wesley Chapel resident Heather Tomasello reads with daughter Catie Tomasello, 4, at their home. Tomasello, a teacher and author, has a fiction story titled Egg Drop Soup that is coming out in the April edition of Highlights for Children magazine.

WESLEY CHAPEL

Heather Tomasello's passion for reading and writing has led her down a road already lined with accomplishments and more ventures are on the horizon.

So far, the local teacher and author has published three books: Strategies for Winning Science Fair Projects and So You Have To Do A Science Fair Project, both published by John Wiley and Sons in 2002; and Before You Call Mom, A Real World Survival Guide, published by Write That Press in 2006.

She has published numerous poems, articles and puzzles and, in April, will add to that growing list a fiction story in Highlights for Children.

Egg Drop Soupis a story of friendship and focuses on a science project that Tomasello knows firsthand. The story follows two close friends working together to build a support for an egg that would withstand a long drop without the egg breaking. A disagreement disrupts the process and the friends struggle with both their relationship and the project.

"In the end, laughter and friendship is stronger than fragile eggs," Tomasello says, adding that she likes puns and there are plenty of puns in the story.

Tomasello wrote and submitted Egg Drop Soup in 2004. She heard from Highlights in September 2007 that the story would publish in April. This is her first story for the magazine.

Tomasello, 29, comes from a family of writers. Her grandmothers both were writers and her mother, Joyce Henderson, who co-authored the science project books and Before You Call Mom, has been writing since high school.

She currently writes for a nursing journal and is working on novels.

Successful competitions in science fairs, up to the International Science Fair, won Tomasello college scholarships.

At the University of Florida, her interests turned toward political science with plans for law school. But, along the way, Tomasello's love for reading kept surfacing as she took English classes for fun.

A class with James Haskins, professor of children's literature, brought it all into focus. Tomasello realized that what she really wanted to do was write for children so she changed paths and never looked back.

Along the way there was marriage and the birth of three children, sons Colby, 6; Zachary, 2; and daughter, Catie, 4.

As might be expected, the children are literature lovers.

Tomasello talks and Catie sits on her lap quietly reading a book aloud, crunching a carrot. Colby is a sounding board for an easy reader series that Tomasello has in progress.

Along the way Tomasello also taught Writing for Children, a continuing education class at J. Sargeant Reynolds Community College in Richmond, Va.

Tomasello is quick to give credit to her mother, Henderson, and her online critique group, individuals she stumbled onto through the Internet.

The six women have become a tight support group, reviewing each other's work and offering cheer and solace, as Tomasello says, through the rejection letters.

In the past three years, the six women have published four picture books, one easy reader, several magazine pieces and several poems and puzzles.

"I am blessed to be a part of this fabulous group of ladies," Tomasello says.

Now, with a story published in Highlights, Tomasello and husband, Jerel, who live in Meadow Pointe in Wesley Chapel, are looking to the next venture.

In the fall they will open the Goddard School for Early Childhood Development, at the northern entrance to Meadow Pointe on State Road 54. The school's capacity is for about 170 children, 6 weeks to age 5, attending full time or part time.

About 20 teachers will work with the children, following the school's philosophy to provide a foundation that encourages a lifelong love of learning.

Fast facts:

Interested?

For more on the Goddard School, go to www.goddardschool.com or e-mail htomasello@tampabay.rr.com.

[Last modified March 10, 2008, 21:48:53]