Florham Park Author Publishes Young Adult Book Series

For Amy Meislin Pollack, it’s taken a while, over 60 years in fact. But finally, her in-her-head created character from fourth grade has finally surfaced between book covers.

The Adventures of Jelly Bean

 Pollack in the spring released her first book, The Adventures of Jelly Bean. Published by Austin Macauley Publishers, Pollack’s offering is about the adventures - or misadventures, if you will – of a cute, raven-haired, pigtailed fourth-grader whose true best friend is her dog, Roger-Over.  

Pollack takes the reader back to the 1960s, when she was tasked in the classroom to keep her classmates entertained. No doubt, her teacher’s reasoning for nudging the young Amy was twofold: she also noticed a brewing creativity. “When I was in fourth grade, my teacher – and you always remember a good teacher very vividly - she would have me come up to the front of the room when I was nine years old, and tell these stories about this little girl named Jelly Bean that I would tell off the top of my head,” Pollack recalls. “Even former classmates remember Jelly Bean, and I say, ‘Really? This was 60 years ago!’ I just had fun telling these stories, and the kids seemed to like it. It became like a regular thing in my classroom.”

Pollack, who taught students from elementary school to college, wrote down the stories she told, but never did anything with them. They sat for years, occasionally revised, as Pollack went to work as a teacher and raised her family. Her mother-in-law would occasionally encourage her onwards. “She would always say, ‘Whatever happened to your children's stories, they were so good? Can you work on them some more? Whatever happened to them?’ That was very meaningful.” Also, her sixth-grade students would offer loving critique, but Pollack’s Jelly Bean tales still lay aside idle for the most part.

It was when the COVID-19 pandemic hit that Pollack found herself with free time and revisited her writing. “COVID was my silver lining, because by this point, my children were all married and I had grandchildren that I was babysitting for,” she says. “I became busy with that, and they (my children) all work, and they were all depending on me to be there. But along came this pandemic where it wasn't permissible to do much of anything. So, I said to myself, it was either cleaning all my closets or finishing my book.”

Pollack, who resides in Florham Park, chose the latter. After revising yet again her manuscript, she sent it out to publishers and, after getting nearly 30 rejections, she one day got an acceptance letter in the mail. “It was surreal,” she says.

The author admits that Jelly Bean is a bit the Amy Pollack of her youth, an also says the girl’s beloved pet, Roger-Over, is a reliable amigo. “My dog in the story is a pretty important part of it, like a comfort to her,” Pollack says. “When nobody else listens and really has time for her, that’s life. The dogs play such an important role, they're always there.”

There’s much more to come in possible future books. Jelly Bean will certainly grow and mature, and Pollack will help the young woman along as she takes on a life of her own. “She will get older, and that’s my plan,” Pollack says.

And Pollack is certainly enjoying the ride. She’s finished the work she started many years ago, sent out queries, suffered the rejections until the wonderful first ever acceptance, and now has her loyal readers. “The most exciting thing I have to say was hearing all the people, or everyone who told them to me, make their positive comments, and the ones that posted them on Amazon and with the publisher. That was really gratifying. I knew I was pretty self-critical as a writer, and I knew parts were pretty good and other parts that could be improved on, but since I taught writing for all those years and had read up on the writing process so much, there comes a point where you just can't correct it.”

The Adventures of Jelly Bean is available both online at Amazon.com and BN.com, and at Barnes & Noble bookstores.