Carmen Martins is a Education Assistant at Oliver Elementary School. She is a grandmother, a wife, a mother and now she is an author.

Carmen has written a short story for young children as well as anyone having difficulty understanding the basic concept of coins: pennies, nickles, dimes and quarters.

This is how it started: Carmen was instructing a challenged person in Elementary School by telling a story about people named Penny, Nickle, Dime and Quarter. Other professionals saw that it seemed to work so they asked Carmen to try it out on several other students. She succeeded and they said “you should publish a book”. She did.

And completed the artwork as well.

“The Rich Family” by Carmen Martins sells for $15.99 and a book signing event will take place next week at Beyond Bliss on Main Street. Carmen says she has invested less than $600 to get the softcover book published by Xlibris Corporation. The book helps children with coin recognition and the story was created to make the learning of money or coins both fun and memorable. Mrs. Martins says she is already working on book #2.

Carmen was born in Agua de Pua, Azores, in Portugal moving to Canada at the age of three. She has spent the majority of her work life caring for challenged children and adults.