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Temecula Youngster Authors Award-Winning Books

Vintage Hills 5th grader to be featured at Orange County book fairs.

Temecula author and fifth-grader Natalie Tinti is scheduled to sign copies of her book, "Sewing a Friendship," during two upcoming events.

One is the Young Authors’ Faire in Costa Mesa on May 14, and the other will happen in October at the Kids’ Book Festival at Orange Coast College. 

Natalie was invited to these festivals because she is a shining example of how young people can get published, said Barry Ackerman, co-founder of the Orange County Children’s Book Festival. “She’s accomplished what a lot of young people would like to do themselves,” Ackerman said.

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Tinti, who moved with her family to Temecula in 2004, showed  superb talent for art and writing at a very young age, wowing her first-grade teacher with her essays. 

She wrote her book, Sewing a Friendship, after she noticed several children at her school who appeared to have trouble making friends. Soon after, a local Barnes and Noble agreed to sell the book and Tinti began making public appearances at the bookseller, which fueled book sales.  

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A follow up book, Sewing a Friendship #2, was written and the series has won seven prestigious national awards.

In addition to authoring books, Tinti illustrated the book "Rainbow and the Fashionistas" and designed coloring books based on the drawings and life lessons from those books.

Tinti feels honored to be invited to the upcoming book fairs, she said. “It’s a lot of fun to meet people who are interested in reading my book,” she said. “I enjoy answering kids’ questions about how they can write and illustrate their own books.”

Tinti’s advice to kids is, “just follow your dreams and you can do whatever you want to do.”

For more information on Tinti and her books please visit: www.sewingafriendship.com

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