Adorfalina and the Gift of Self-Confidence

By Adrianne Carlino Gentile and Beti Kristof Mohn

FULL OF WIT AND WISDOM, THIS ADVENTURE STORY FOLLOWS ADORFALINA, a little Angel who is afraid to fly, lacks self-confidence, is always late, but daydreams of flying in a pair of beautiful purple wings. The Angels hold an emergency meeting to save the Earth from bullies and everlasting unhappiness, and Adorfalina is late again. She does, however, come up with the perfect plan to help Earth and the best human to use it. Sara Hattson is a young girl with Down syndrome. She is both kind and insightful. After some humorous mishaps, Adorfalina and her friends cook up the magical Gift of Self-Confidence. Will the Gift work? Will Sara be able to spread the Gift of Self-Confidence?

This story demonstrates how self-confidence, respect, and kindness between people of different cultural, social, and special needs develop friendship and happiness.

• Language: English
• Publisher: iUniverse
• Release date: Sep 1, 2022
• ISBN: 9781663242624

Adrianne Carlino Gentile

Adrianne Carlino Gentile is an artist, writer, and published poet. She writes for Las Vegas Now Magazine and is founder of G.I.F.T.S., Giving/Getting Inspiration From The Source, a cultural creative women?s networking group. She and her husband have two children, almost four grandchildren, and currently reside in Las Vegas.

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Copyright © 2022 Adrianne Carlino Gentile.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

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Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

ISBN: 978-1-6632-4261-7 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-6632-4262-4 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2022913169

iUniverse rev. date: 08/29/2022

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Contents

Dedication

Testimonials

A Word from the Author

Acknowledgements

Chapter 1 The Land of Aura

Chapter 2 Pleasant Park

Chapter 3 The Crystal Palace

Chapter 4 The Recipe

Chapter 5 The Rescue Flight

Chapter 6 Sara

Chapter 7 The Mission

Chapter 8 Band Together

Chapter 9 Return Home

Also by Adrianne Carlino Gentile

66 Leaves- Poems From My Tree of Life

A collection of poems encompassing our shared human experiences and feelings about subjects such as love, births, humor, controversy, and deaths. Insightful verse without being complicated.

Dedication

This book is dedicated to my husband, Joe, for all his years of unconditional love, encouragement, advice, and support.

My children, Cindy and Joe, for all the times they have listened to this story and given me their thoughtful advice.

To my grandchildren, Sara, Wren, Andy, Liana, Joseph, and Kayla for keeping me in a childhood frame of mind and giving me happy memories.

To my great grandchildren, August and Mavis, for being a source of fun and love.

To my sister, Nancy, for always promoting me and telling me how proud she is of me.

To my other sisters, Chris and Emily, for their love and encouragement.

To my mom and dad for providing me with such a wondrous, loving childhood for my inspiration.

Bestow upon your young children self-confidence so they may overcome their fears to try new experiences, interact with people, and thus develop their confidence.

___ Adrianne Carlino Gentile

Testimonials

Adorfalina & The Gift of Self-Confidence by Adrianne Carlino Gentile is a very delightful story that is quite timely as it addresses a very critical issue of our time – developing self-confidence in our children. Adrianne tackles this issue in multiple layers that will pique the interest of its reader. One Angel helping one human who helps another by instilling the magic of self-confidence to overcome bitterness, hatred, prejudice, stereotypes, meanness, and bullying. This is a message of helping ourselves to likewise help others confront their own lack of self-confidence. Self-confidence can be shared with courage and kindness. As a result of this story, the message can be spread as intended.

I wholeheartedly endorse this book and encourage it to be made available to all children, school libraries, public libraries, parent’s libraries to be read over and over as it captures the child’s imagination to promote endless possibilities.

R.L Shannon, Ph.D. (retired) worked 45 years as a child psychologist involved intensively with mental health issues of thousands of our hurting children.

As an artist, painter, sculpture, writer, philanthropist, parent, and friend, my personal experience as a mother brushes tenderly alongside the theme of adorfalina. I believe we must nurture self-confidence in our children so we can all live with acceptance of each other to make our world a better place.

Beti Kristof-Mohn, fine artist, illustrator, author.

A Word from the Author

Adorfalina and The Gift of Self-Confidence has evolved over many years. It started out as a story about a little Angel working in Thiamus The Tailor’s Shop who was afraid to fly but as time passed and my children grew, I became more aware of bullying in school. How could this bullying be stopped? Why do children grow up to be unkind to others? I wondered, and so did my character, Adorfalina.

Then one day our family was blessed with the birth of our first granddaughter, a little girl born with Down syndrome. Our lives were changed forever. Sara took a bit longer to learn the things that other children could acquire instinctively. We had to stimulate her tongue for easier feeding and exercise her little muscles to prepare her for walking. We taught her sign language so she could communicate as soon as possible. Sara would eat anything as long as it was mixed with yogurt. She was and is still such a bright light in our lives.

Sara has taught us patience and kindness. She doesn’t judge others by their appearance. She’s got a wonderful and fun-loving personality. And one of the most interesting traits is her ability to communicate with those souls on the other side. That’s right! Sara