Bringing Frankinschool Mysteries to Life
By Naperville Magazine
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By: Jeff Banowetz
Caryn Rivadeneira got her start editing magazines. But her career shifted 24 years ago when her son was born. Wanting to spend more time at home, she decided to take up freelancing and soon found a new passion for writing fiction. The Elmhurst resident (and native) has since written more than 25 books.
For her first book, she was asked to create a preschool version of Noah’s Ark. “I thought, how hard could that be?” she says. “Well, it’s harder than you think. There’s a lot of drowning and dying in there. It was a challenge to tell a story that was honest in a kid-friendly way.”
She recently completed her award-winning Frankinschool mystery series (for elementary school readers), which imagines a world in which one of the students is turned into a Frankenstein-style monster. The idea developed after an incident with her youngest son, who was absent the day of an author signing. He returned to school to find his book was signed “to Frank” instead of his real name, Fredrik. “And as a second grader, he got really upset,” she says. “So we started playing this game of how he could be ‘Frank in school.’ And that’s how the whole idea started.”
Next up, the first book in Rivadeneira’s new series, The Sunday School Club, will be published in January.
Photo: Fredrik Rivadeneira
