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Yamileth is growing up surrounded by her parents' love and unaware of a family secret known by everybody except her. Her life changes the day her parents decide to send her to a boarding school for children from families of high standing. There she will make great friends and tackle new challenges that help her mature. A forest full of wonderful places where she can escape the rules, a wolf as her faithful friend and a friendship that transcends racial and social barriers. When everything seems to be falling apart, her dreams and her great friends will still be there. A story of friendship, self-development and of fighting for your dreams. Will you join the adventure?
I am from the city of Seville in Spain and I have loved books for as long as I can remember. Many people decide to write: for some it is a therapy, since writing is relaxing and helps clarify ideas; for others it is a vocation and for others still it is a hobby. To which of these groups do I belong? Honestly, I have to admit I relate to all of them. My love for books has grown continuously since I was a little girl and I still treasure the memory of those first classics that fell into my hands, Platero and I, Bécquer's Rhymes and Legends… I read them when I was a little girl and I still love them, like all the children's books I read and re-read over and over again. From my love of reading was born my passion for writing. I wrote short stories for school competitions (without much success), rhymes, poems and, at the age of 12, my first long story which was only read by a schoolfriend, her sisters and my brother, who acted as proofreader. I still have and cherish the notebook I wrote it in. All of us who have a passion for writing have similar backgrounds and challenges.
When my first niece was born, I felt the urge to write something special just for her. It would be my gift, a tale created for her which would try to recover the essence of the classics where the only magic is that of the heart, born from the goodness we all carry inside. No vampires, witches or wizards (with great respect to all those people who enjoy reading about them), I wanted to write something different and at the same time commonplace for my niece.
And so Following the Princess's Dreams came into being, the story of a girl whose lively mind and vibrant imagination lead her to live great stories alongside her friends with whom she learns that there are no racial or social differences strong enough to break true friendship. The blows in her life lead her to strive to be better with each day and reaffirm her conviction that you should never lose hope and much less give up on your dreams, since however unlikely they might seem, if we keep fighting we can reach our dreams. It is a story about self-development and the importance of always looking on the bright side and valuing the people who love us. Focused on my little niece, I wanted to entertain her and at the same time give her a message in which good people are rewarded and bad people are judged. It is what we all wish for in real life, which is why I think it is a good approach for children's and young people's literature, adapted to readers of different ages.
The story is not set at any particular time in history, nor in any particular place, leaving those details to the reader's imagination. I wrote it as a complete story with a beginning and an end since it was going to be read only by my niece, but when my family saw the finished work, they encouraged me to try to publish it. My blog "El sueño de escribir" ("The dream of writing") relates some of the challenges I faced getting my work published and the reasons I decided to do it independently, under the pseudonym Amalia Vásquez (my grandmother's name) to enjoy a certain anonymity.
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