Heart of the butterfly Centereach author fulfills mission, keeps promise with new publishing co.
By Jean-Michael Salamanca	write the author
August 27, 2008 | 03:01 PM Some people look for gold at the end of a rainbow, but Michelle Zimmerman found something even more valuable: inspiration. The 13-year Centereach resident and speech-language pathologist is celebrating her new career as an author and publisher, and she traces this path back to a particular day in 2004 during a visit to her home town of Overland Park, Kan. From a location on Rainbow Boulevard (you can't make this up), she said, Zimmerman witnessed a most beautiful rainbow arching across the sky; the sight of it, along with the work she was doing at the time with a young boy with speech issues, inspired her to write, illustrate and publish her first book, "Can't Catch a Butterfly." The book is slated to hit bookshelves Sept. 22. It will also be available on Amazon.com and at the website of Zimmerman's new company, www.rainbowstarbooks.com. "Can't Catch A Butterfly", the author's first professionally published book, is about a little boy attempting to catch brightly colored butterflies with his net. The book — which focuses on a variety of learning concepts, such as color identification and spatial relations — is suitable for children ages 2 to 6, Zimmerman said, and will list for $16.95. Zimmerman said she actually wrote and illustrated "Butterfly" in 1999 as a teaching aid. "I work with a lot of autistic kids ... kids that have special needs," she said. "Sometimes, when you give them a real book, they can't keep their attention." So she created one that would hold their attention, and later, while working with a particularly tough case, determined to have it published. That child, Zimmerman noted, had speech and language delays stemming from seizures the child suffered as an infant. After working with him for more than a year, the speech-language pathologist said she noticed marked improvement and they were nearing the end of their sessions — when the seizures began reoccurring. Around this time, Zimmerman traveled to her high school reunion in Kansas, and the day before she returned to New York spotted the impressive rainbow. "I wanted to do something special for this family because they needed some inspiration," she said. "So I wrote a book called 'Rainbow Promise'. That's where [the name for] Rainbow Star Books comes from — the little boy and the rainbow." Zimmerman, who still keeps in touch with the boy and his family, found that actually getting a children's book published was harder than she'd expected. With a closet full of unpublished manuscripts dating back to 1999, the author kept getting rejection letters from bigger publishing houses like Simon & Schuster and Orchard Books. It was the encouragement of her husband that prompted her to launch her own publishing company, she noted. "I started thinking, 'I have a mission, so why not create my own destiny? I have my own mission statement, I don't have to wait for a publisher,'" Zimmerman said. The rest is publishing history, culminating in her visit in May to a Wisconsin printer, where "Butterfly" rolled off the presses. And the author — make it the publisher — is hardly resting on her laurels. Planned projects include expanding "Butterfly" into a series, as well as publishing some of her earlier efforts, including "Rainbow Promise." She also has designs on bringing in other local authors, although for now, Zimmerman is content to focus on her own work. Zimmerman said she'd also like to make the Rainbow Star Books website more interactive, beefing up sections like Kid's Corner, Family Fun and Teacher Time with more printable work and activity sheets for children and parents alike. Prior to her book's official launch, on Sept. 20, Zimmerman is scheduled to host a reading and signing event for at the Sweetbriar Nature Center in Smithtown beginning at 10 am. Preregistration is required; to register or for more information, call Sweetbriar at 979-6344. While launch parties and expanded websites are great fun, for Zimmerman this entire adventure is about more than starting a business. It's about helping children, she said. "There's a whole educational base to all this," Zimmerman noted. "It's not just about being a publisher. There's heart here."