Stela Fernandes Onishi (photo) was born into a Spiritist in Brazil’s largest city, São Paulo. And educator a writer, she now lives in São José do Rio Preto, in the state of São Paulo. She is married to Oceander Veschi, a well-known leader or the local Spiritist Movement. She is also mother of Lara, who is 10, and Lívia, who is 2, and looks after her elderly parents, who live with her. She works as a volunteer at A Caminho da Luz Spiritist Association, as a speaker and coordinator of children’s Gospel groups. She is a dedicated writer and has recently published her first chidren’s book, Cachorrinho Perdido (The Missing Little Dog), as she explains in the following interview.

When and how did you become a Spiritist?

I used to go along with my mother to our local Spiritist Centre from a very young age. But I only felt the urge to study the Teachings when I was about 21 years old, when I went to live in Japan.

Where does your interest for children’s literature?

My eldest daughter was born in 2008 and I think that my creativity in that area was born with her. I began writing homemade booklets that she liked, but that wasn’t enough for me to embrace the idea of becoming a writer.

How did you come up with the idea of writing the book, Cachorrinho Perdido (The Missing Little Dog)?

The book was written a bit casually. It was meant to be another homemade book. But this time I had the brilliant idea of showing it to a friend who has a Masters in Literature (Denise Fraga). She was at the time my lecturer at university and encouraged me to write to a wider public. I didn’t show it to anyone, however, until Orson Peter Carrara came to my place one day and I showed it to him. He encouraged me to send it to IDE, the publishing house, and that’s how this story was eventually published and read by people beyond the realms of my immediate family.

How do you address the children in the book?

Throughout the book, I make a concerted effort to touch the children’s feelings. After all, literature is not an information sheet. And I also make sure to find a happy ending, to inject the young ones with a bit of optimism.

As a mother, how do you connect with the book?

As a mother, I don’t focus on the content of the book. I like to see the reaction of the children as they turn every page. I only intervene and help them if they reach a completely mistaken conclusion based on the story. Only then do I explain to them what the moral message is. Otherwise, I just stay away.

Are you preparing other books?

I believe that by the end of the year I will publish yet another children’s book and another one aimed at the wider public (focusing on our teenagers).

Tells us a bit more about the book illustrations.

The illustrations on this book make me laugh. Now I believe I can draw a little better. I joined a drawing course once to improve my technique, but a friend of mine said my drawings had personality. So I decided to carry on like before, drawing, as my own daughter said, “like a child.”

Is there anything else you would like to add?

I would like to mention a few interesting aspects:

One day, talking to one of the directors of our Spiritist Centre (Rodrigues Ferreira), a master and a friend, I said I had this “talent” for writing children’s stories, but I added that I wouldn’t take it seriously as it would be very difficult to make a living out of that. He then taught me a lesson that me, as an immature Spirit, will take with me to eternity.

He told me: “Stela, that talent doesn’t belong to you. It belongs to the world. And it may well not make you any money. But you don’t have the right to keep that inside a drawer.”

It was an awakening for me. It was then that I saw the materialist and selfish aspects of my personality erecting barriers that needed to be broken. And then I began to work hard, I felt the responsibility and the importance of my task and things began to happen naturally.

Leave us with your final thoughts.

I now wake up every day at 5 in the morning and I write my books aware that I am a volunteer for the world. Even if nothing happens in the end, I have come to the conclusion that I have a duty to fulfil, a very enjoyable duty by the way. So when the clock strikes 06:30, it is then time to wake up Stela – the wife, the mother, the daughter and the friend, with all their different duties and roles.