Peterborough mother-and-daughter duo Wendy and Carley Smale recently saw their dream come to life with the release of their very own children’s book.
With Wendy’s decades of knowledge as an early childhood educator and Carley’s expertise as a feature screenwriter, the women combined their skill sets to write Tiny Astronaut, a book for children 12 years old and younger.
With illustrations by Raymund James Dakay, Tiny Astronaut tells the story of a little boy named Oliver who is feeling insecure after being left out for being the smallest boy in his class. It’s not until he goes to outer space and meets all the planets that he begins to realize his own worth.
“When he meets Pluto, he learns that just because you’re small doesn’t mean you can’t make an impact in the world,” explains Wendy, who adds that the story includes facts about each planet along the way.
A retired educator who has worked in daycares and at the Rhema Christian School and James Strath Public School, Wendy has more than 40 years of experience working with school children of all ages. She knows the types of stories children want to read — space stories, of course — and the types of stories children need to read.
“I personally have seen enough bullying in my years of teaching, even in primary (grades),” Wendy says. “(I’m) especially thinking about a playground and kids trying to find their way at recess. That idea spoke to me quite a bit, as far as kids being comfortable in a situation where they’re feeling a bit inferior or not confident.”
Throughout her years of teaching, Wendy amassed large collections of children’s books, as reading was always one of her favourite things to do with the kids she taught. It’s a passion she passed down to her daughter Carley, who has gone on to write more than a dozen screenplays produced and sold to Netflix, the Hallmark Channel, Disney+, and Lifetime.
“Growing up with her reading all these different children’s books definitely gave me a love of reading and writing,” says Carley. “It’s always been something that I’ve loved and now, with my niece and nephew and a lot of my friends’ kids, I’m back to reading a lot of children’s books. I just think they’re so fun.”
Carley has found great success in writing holiday-themed feature films, beginning with 2014’s The Christmas Parade on the Hallmark Channel, followed by 2017’s Snowed-Inn Christmas, 2018’s Christmas Pen Pals (which starred Sarah Drew of Grey’s Anatomy), 2019’s No Time Like Christmas, 2020’s Let’s Meet Again on Christmas Eve, and 2022’s A Gingerbread Christmas. In addition to her holiday movies, she directed her first feature film Cold Season in 2014 and, in 2020, wrote the Lifetime movie His Fatal Fixation and the romantic comedy Midnight at the Magnolia.
While Tiny Astronaut is the first time they’ve written anything together, Wendy has always been an editor for Carley’s work since the beginning of her daughter’s career.
“The imagination is all Carley’s when it comes to her own work, but I usually try and see if there’s a flow problem or grand grammar things,” says Wendy, crediting her educator background. “I can see the really small things in grammar that just irk me.”
She jokes she was relieved to find that, after publication, Tiny Astronaut did not contain any grammatical mistakes that would bother her relentlessly.
Due to their shared bond over reading, writing a children’s book with her mother was something Carley had been wanting to do for a long time. She even has it pinned to the vision board she keeps in her Peterborough home.
“So much of what I do, I do by myself,” explains Carley. “Screenwriting involves spending a lot of time by yourself, so I knew I wanted to do something with somebody else, and we both love children’s books so much that it just makes sense.”
Expressing that Tiny Astronaut was a “fun” process, the women are not opposed to teaming up to write another children’s book in the future.
In the meantime, though, Carley has a busy few months ahead with three made-for-TV features being released this holiday season, including Christmas by Design premiering on Hallmark on October 27, as well as two features with the working titles Yes! Chef Christmas (starring Tia Mowry) and Christmas at the Lighthouse, with release dates to be announced.
Following in the educational footsteps of her mother, Carley will also be leading an eight-week introduction to screenwriting course beginning on Thursday, October 26. The course will run from 7:30 p.m. to 9:30 p.m. each week. The beginner-friendly course will take participants with an idea for a feature story through the steps and techniques of writing a screenplay, from formatting to structure to character development.
“If anyone out there has a movie idea that’s been in their head forever and they want to make a script but just don’t know where to start, I would love to teach them,” Carley explains. “I’ll help people understand how to write a screenplay and try to get them from concept to hopefully at least halfway through the first act of the actual screenplay by the end of the eight weeks.”
Wendy can attest to the quality of the workshop, having taken it herself when Carley first offered the course back in 2018, joking that she didn’t have to edit Carley’s course or her teaching ability.
“It certainly makes you appreciate the process,” Wendy says. “I knew some it already, but when it’s actually in a class, it’s concise. But it’s a lot and it gives people an idea of just how much work (screenwriting) is.”
For more information on the screenwriting course, email Carley at carleysmale23@gmail.com. Tiny Astronaut is available as a hardcover or paperback from Amazon.
