A CHILD
LEFT BEHIND
Unaware at the
time, the unexpected death of her father would shatter the life of this
five-year-old girl. She managed to get through the next few years
adjusting to a large, blended family and calling another man "Daddy".
But something happened to her one night that marked a realization that life
offers a seemingly endless supply of pain and emptiness.
It was a
pivotal poem that woke Jeanne O'Donnell with this revelation, the poem that
became the impetus for A Child Left Behind. She carried it with
her into adulthood, where she began a life of immorality, common to her
"free love" generation. It was a shocking response from a date one
evening that led her to the date that would change her life forever.
Yet, her struggles continued, as did her poetry. They provided the
stages for her metamorphosis. until she learned to find the love she
lost when she became A Child Left Behind. This book's genre is
unique and a must read for anyone who has loved and lost.
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Author's Biography: It was two weeks shy of her 50th
birthday when Jeanne O’Donnell received word that her services were no
longer needed at her job of almost seventeen years. As her severance and
unemployment income dwindled with no job offers on the horizon, she began to
realize that God had another plan for her. Jeanne recalled the words of her
seventh-grade teacher when she had won an essay contest, “You have a knack
for writing. You should pursue that someday.” The story that her life
portrayed, the one that she attempted to publish seven years prior without
success, had been saved “for such a time as this.” This was that “someday”
as expressed by her teacher.
She knew that there was a reason for her
intense emotions and feelings of loss surrounding the death of her father as
a young girl. But she had to wait until God revealed to her the way to a
resolution of that loss via years of inspirational verse. She never really
knew her birth father who departed when she was five-years-old, and remained
emotionally distant from her stepfather. In her quest to find the paternal
love she missed she would fall prey to many bends in the road of life.
The path she chose to travel took her to
the edge of darkness; and not unlike Paul on his journey to Damascus, she
would lose her blindness to the one true God and develop a spiritual
relationship with Him. He would teach her how to move beyond the pain of
loss where she would learn how to love the fathers she never knew. Over time
she would realize that, like Moses on the mount, God had given her the words
to offer others hope in a similar desperation. The events of her life had
been transcribed into poetry. Those verses became the story of her
transformation.
It was the first Christian publishing
company she pulled up on the internet. Eight weeks after she submitted her
book, she received an email message from Trinity Tate of Tate Publishing
Company that said, “I have been
reading through your submission and I am certainly impressed!! What a truly
powerful and poignant message!! This is a project that we are really
interested in taking on…I receive about 450 manuscripts for approval each
month. We accept anywhere from 6-8% each year. Congratulations on being a
part of this select few!! I think your material has a lot of potential and
we would certainly like to get you contracts to view as soon as I
can get a proper mailing address.”
Jeanne O’Donnell’s first book, A
Child Left Behind, began its distribution in February, 2007. Raised
in Dallas, Texas and a daughter of National Mother of the Year 2000, Jeanne
now resides in eastern North Carolina. There are a limited number of books left in stock with the author since Tate Publishing ceased operations in 2017. If you are interested in purchasing a copy, please send an inquiry on the Contact Us page noting your interest in a copy in the Comments section. The author will then contact you with the details on how to obtain the book.
Sneak Preview: an excerpt from the first in a series of humorous
novelty cat books by Jeanne O'Donnell
Chapter 2
Passions and Purrsuits
Just
as any young kitten dreams of what she will be and do when
she grows up, Renny and Topsy have dreams of what they will become.
A socialite by nature and comfortable from youth in front of a
camera, Renny aspires to be a model. She likes to play dress up,
wear her mother’s jewelry and hats, and adventurously hopes to one
day sail on a catamaran and have her photo appear on the
cover of Catmopolitan. She also has a keen interest in her
ancestry and decides to learn her two ancestral languages:
Purrsian and Siamese.
Though
she likes spending time with her friends, Topsy, over the years, is
unable to partake in some of their activities and, as a result,
finds other things to purrsue. Contrary to doctor’s orders as
a kitten to limit her physical activity, she tries to
overcome the floating kneecaps she was saddled with at birth and
takes a course in acrocatics. Unsure she’ll be able to make a
career with her acrocatics, she becomes the proverbial
computer geek and sets a goal to become an X-ray technologist,
specializing in CAT scans.
One
day, they each notice a poster hanging in their school announcing a
beauty pageant, the pageant of all pageants: Miss Americat.
Renny thinks, “This could help me launch a career in modeling. I
know I can win this pageant, categorically.” Topsy
contemplates, “This could give me the money I need for school to
become a CAT scanographer.” Full of excitement, each of them
runs home to tell their mother about the pageant. Renny decides her
talent will be singing a song in a combination of her two ancestral
languages. Challenged by nature from birth, Topsy chooses to
demonstrate her talent in the art of acrocatics and starts
training for the high jump. Neither of the girls know the other is
entering the pageant. The competition begins.
copyright
© 2008.
Jeanne V. O'Donnell
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