Oak View Middle School teacher Marilyn Shaw was having a hard time finding books about Florida’s history that would appeal to her students.

So she wrote one herself.

Solomon, Shaw’s 195-page novel about a family of freed slaves building a homestead in the wilderness of North Florida following the Civil War, comes out on March 15.  Editor June Cussen at Pineapple Press says the book will meet a demand in the marketplace.

“There is a big need for books that portray to young readers earlier times in Florida history and do it in a way that makes kids want to read,” said Cussen. “This is a story that needed to be told, and Marilyn tells it well.”

Although most of the book is set in Lafayette County, readers from this area and surrounding communities will recognize other places featured in Solomon, including Gainesville and Dudley Farm near Newberry.

“This book grows from my roots,” said Shaw, who was raised and currently lives on a farm. “I’m at least a fifth-generation Floridian, and we’ve had Florida and agricultural ties throughout most of those generations.”

The book’s title character is Solomon Freeman, a boy whose dreams for the future conflict with his father’s plans. It’s a theme Shaw believes will resonate with the readers she’s targeting—and their parents.

“I think they’ll identify with it,” she said.  “The story takes place many years ago, but in many ways people haven’t really changed. Parents and kids have agonized over each other for centuries.”

Shaw, who is the reading coach at Oak View, spent three years writing the book during her spare time and another year looking for a publisher and making final revisions—a process that confirmed what she’s been telling her students for so long.

“Solomon is the demonstration of lessons I’ve tried to teach students for thirty years—writing is grueling and gratifying,” said Shaw. “I hope it’s comforting to them that I use more red ink on myself than them.”

Some of that red ink was the result of feedback she got from Oak View students. Shaw conducted a field test with a group of eighth-graders, telling them the book was written by someone else. The students praised the book, but they also had a lot of suggestions for the ‘unidentified’ author. Shaw used their input to make changes, revising paragraphs and beefing up some of the scenes to make them more dramatic.

“I took their responses very seriously, because I’ve learned that kids really see through things,” she said.

As a result of their productive criticism, the students earned a spot in the book’s acknowledgement section, as did many of Shaw’s colleagues at Oak View and around the district.

“They have been so supportive,” she said. “They buoyed me when I thought this was a really stupid thing to try to do and that I was in over my head!”

“We’ve all been a part of this process and feel a part of Solomon lives within all of us,” said Oak View principal Karen Clarke. “We feel honored to have such a gifted and talented author as part of the Oak View family."

Three advance copies of Solomon are already on the shelves at Oak View—or rather, they’re off the shelves, because all three were immediately checked out. One of those who has already read the book is eighth-grader Kaylee Parsons.

“I like the story a lot,” she said. “We don’t have a lot of Florida history books. This is a very, very good book. You can relate to it.”

Shaw is now working with some colleagues from Alachua County and other districts on a teacher guide to help other teachers incorporate the book into their literacy, history and other lesson plans. She’ll also be doing book signings and talking to state and national education groups during the summer.

Shaw does have plans for a sequel to Solomon and a couple of other historical novels for students, but she says she will also keep teaching.

“I like what I do,” she said. “Writing is so solitary that I don’t think I would enjoy doing just that.”