More than 300 children, parents and other guests attended the launch of the book Respect at The American School of Doha (ASD) recently.

The student writers and illustrators of Respect were introduced at the launch and read excerpts from the book. The students also sang a song about respect in both English and Arabic and, to everyone’s surprise, the book’s hero, Jessy, arrived as the guest of honour.

The book tells the story of Jessy, an Alien on a secret mission to Earth, as he visits The American School of Doha. Jessy must learn about humans, but he is taught so much more along the way, things such as respect and kindness.

Respect is the second book written and illustrated by ASD students in a four book series of the school’s values. The first book, published in 2012, was titled Compassion. The American School of Doha says it places great emphasis on its four core values of Respect, Honesty, Responsibility and Compassion, which are infused and taught throughout the school from preK through grade 12. For the second installation, the students chose to write about respect.

“The book captures the essence of what it means to be treated with respect at school. This book is especially meaningful because the children wanted the proceeds to be contributed to charity,” said Deborah Welch, Director of The American School of Doha. The charity chosen was the Al Faisal Without Boarders Foundation.

According to Ali Mare, Executive Director of Al Faisal Without Borders Foundation, the foundation is a “humanitarian global foundation, which promotes sustainable development and improved quality of life for people around the world.”

Before the welcome speech a slideshow displayed photos of students, the writers and illustrators of Respect, as they worked on writing drafts and drawing the characters including before and after shots to demonstrate the process of creating a book like this. Five strong student artists were selected after interested students were asked to draw a detailed picture of a toad and a frog in a boat on water with landscape around them. Those artists were Veronica Lemus Velasquez, Isabel Montiel Castellano, Annie Jun, Valeria Gutierrez and Arub Siddiqui.

“I purposefully chose hard subjects for them to draw because I wanted to see how creative they could be within these parameters,” explained Samantha McGuinness, LES Art Teacher and Respect illustration guide. The student illustrators were responsible for two pages each, but they helped each other when needed. They learned how to use Photoshop, which is a skill that is not normally taught at this level. Samantha was taken away with how impressive the group was. “They just fell into place and knew their roles...they were all truly invaluable.”  The three writers of Respect — Anna Selfridge, Andreas Van Acker and Sahej Panag — then began to read the book to the children in attendance. As they flipped the pages and read, one could see the excitement in their eyes. Guided by a former ASD 5th grade teacher, Anne Deitch, the students worked after school to write a story that was relevant to their lives and the values that they follow on a daily basis.

The students were shown a storyboard format and as homework they brainstormed ideas that they later shared as a group. Once the plot for Respect was complete and an outline created, they began to write. Anne’s job was to keep them focused with small edits done on her part, but the fantastic part about the project was that the students wrote the entire story. Anne said that they all “learned how to compromise and communicate their ideas effectively [and] how to stick with a long term project and stay committed even though they had to spend time after school and at recess to complete the book.”

Once the story was completed, the student illustrators brought it to life through images — the result was Jessy and about the respect shown to him as a guests at ASD.

For information on how to purchase a copy of Respect, please send an email to [email protected]. The book is also available in Arabic.