Pet donkey inspires children to publish book

Airman, August, 2004 by Mark Woodbury

EDWARDS AIR FORCE BASE, Calif. -- Three children of an Airman here have completed a two-year project ant published their story.

Myles, Scarlett and Preston Gallagher are the children of Chief Master Sgt. Richard Gallagher and his wife, Gwenyth. The youngsters published a children's book, "The Adventures of 'Sweet Pea' the Donkey," about their pet donkey.

Sweet Pea takes on human characteristics in the book and shares her different experiences with her friends --horses--at the Edwards' stables.

"This has been a project that the kids really wanted to see happen," said the mother of the authors. "I always encouraged them to write down the different story ideas they came up with concerning Sweet Pea, but once those stories were put on paper, the kids really were the driving force behind wanting to get the stories published into a book."

The roughly 28-page book has a different Sweet Pea story on each page with an illustration drawn by 9-year-old Scarlett that goes along with each story.

"I hope that people like it," Scarlett said. "We put a lot of time and hard work into the book."

--Airman 1st Class Mark Woodbury, 95th Air Base Wing Public Affairs