Storybooks, trips to the local library and colored notebook paper.

Such things bring Ann Haywood Leal back to her fond childhood in Auburn, where her lifelong love affair with the written word first sparked.

The little girl’s imagination was as wide as her dreams were big. She aspired to be a teacher, eagerly waited for new books to appear on the library shelf and expressed her creativity in stories.

“I wrote my first novel in the sixth grade on 100 pages of mostly colored notebook paper,” Leal recalled. “It was called, ‘Mischievous Martha’ … and she did things that I would have liked to do, but would never have dared.”

Leal partly composed those first handwritten chapters of the novel in her best friend’s treehouse, and when given the freedom, from her desk in Mary Rinear’s classroom at Chinook Elementary School. Mrs. Rinear was the first influential person outside Leal’s family who encouraged the girl to explore her creative prose.

Leal’s family encouraged thought and creativity, providing inspiration that would trigger a passionate career – both in teaching as a third-generation educator and writing as a first-time published author.

“I always wanted to write,” said Leal, who grew up in Auburn and lives today with her own family in Waterford, Conn., about halfway between Boston and New York on the New England shoreline. “My parents also encouraged me to write. … My mom (Peggy Haywood) quickly realized how important writing was to me. She made sure I always had plenty of writing materials available. She and my dad (Lionel Haywood) always took the time to read everything I wrote, and they saved quite a few of my stories.”

Those early stories served as the building blocks for a persistent writer who endured plenty of rejections and rewrites over the years to join the published crowd at last.

Her moving, fictional novel, “Also Known As Harper” is a timely tale of a feisty, courageous girl, an aspiring poet named Harper, and how she and her family confront homelessness and the absence of their alcoholic father. With her mother scrambling to find work, the irrepressible girl has to skip school to care for her little brother. Their lives are turned upside down, which Harper could just about handle – if not for the writing contest at school. If only she could get up on that stage and read her poems out loud …

The novel is appropriate for young readers – targeted for the middle-grade years – yet tackles mature topics, such as homelessness and poverty.

The book grew out of Leal’s own experiences as a local soup kitchen volunteer. She has witnessed the hardship of many families.

“Seeing the kids standing so quietly in line with their families really hit me hard,” Leal said. “The majority of the kids I see everyday in my job as an elementary teacher have started out their lives with comfort and distinct advantages. But the kids at the soup kitchen rarely have known that kind of world. It got me thinking about what their lives might be like.

“I didn’t set out to write on an issue of homelessness,” Leal added. “I just wanted to tell the story of a little girl, and I knew I was going to put her in a tough situation.”

While the novel focuses on family, it is also about perseverance and hope – a tone that struck a chord with Leal’s readers, young and old.

The book’s reviews have been glowing. It made the top 10 list for “Good Morning America’s Picks for Teen Summer Reading.”

“I’m excited about it because I didn’t really know what to expect,” said Leal, who since has completed a second middle-grade fiction novel to be released next year. “This is all so new. It’s a little overwhelming, but it also is really great.”

The book is a reward for Leal’s hard work. Despite many rejections, she found her way, improved her skills over time with the guidance of many forces in the industry, notably authors and advisors Judy Bloom and Patricia Reilly Giff.

“Ann is a wonderful writer with an enormous heart, and a voice that is distinctive and wrenching and wise,” Giff wrote in her book review.

In time, Leal’s work received recognition and an important call from an ambitious agent.

The success of the book has sent Leal on a tour of appearances and signings. But Leal doesn’t seem to mind. The recognition affirms her good work, connected to an underlying message – help others help themselves, give others hope by giving something of yourself.

“By doing a little, we help so much,” she insisted.

Leal will bring her story home next week. She plans to reconnect with family and friends, even classmates at her 30-year reunion at Auburn High School.

Included in her many book tour appearances will be a Tuesday afternoon visit to a place her mother always took her when she was a little girl – the Auburn Public Library.

“I really wanted to do it,” Leal said of the homecoming. “It was a place where I got my first library card.

“It has such memories for me.”

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MEET THE AUTHOR

Author Ann Haywood Leal, an Auburn High School and University of Washington graduate, is coming home to promote and discuss her first published book, “Also Known As Harper” (Henry Holt Books for Young Readers, $16.99 hardcover, lower prices vary). Grade range: 5 and up; age range: 10 and up. The fiction novel is available in most bookstores and online at Amazon, Borders, Barnes & Noble, and indiebound.org.

Her appearances:

• Aug. 11, 3:30 p.m., Auburn Public Library, 1102 Auburn Way S.

• Aug. 13, 7 p.m., Village Books, 1200 11th St., Bellingham.

• Aug. 14, 1 p.m., University of Washington, main bookstore, 4326 University Way NE.

• Aug. 15, 1 p.m., Mockingbird Books at Greenlake, 7220 Woodlawn Avenue NE, Seattle

More information: www.annhaywoodleal.com