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Meet Bunita the Bat
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Posted on Nov 10 2006
A retired Guam teacher will launch her first children’s book at the Joeten Kiyu Public Library today.
Author Maria Borja Dooley will read her book, Bunita the Bat, to children in the library at 10am today, Nov. 11, 2006.
A mother of four and grandmother of two children, Dooley says she wrote Bunita the Bat for the children of the Marianas in the hope of teaching them a thing or two about caring for each other and for the environment.
Inspired by a bat that Dooley saw while visiting Rota’s Bird Sanctuary in four years ago, Bunita the Bat is about a strong-minded Marianas fruit bat who is ostracized by her peers because of her ugly appearance.
“Bunita is pretty much the new kid on the block. I don’t want to spoil the book, but you will see how she struggled. She was treated poorly by the other characters, but she maintained her Chamorro spirit, that is, to continue to be the kind of person that she is,” said Dooley, who spent 28 years teaching at different Guam elementary schools.
“The beauty of this book is it also touches another aspect of humanity. When you read the book, you will see that there are certain things that we humans need to do for the endangered species. You will start to think about what is going on out there about our wildlife and how we are responsible for what happens to them,” she added.
Dooley credits her eight-year-old granddaughter, Tyler, for her input to the book. “Tyler was very much a part of this book. I asked her opinion so that the book could cater to children her age,” the author said.
Bunita the Bat was published with grant funding from the NMI Council for the Humanities. The book will have a formal launching in each of the islands in the Marianas: the morning of Nov. 11 on Saipan and afternoon at the Tinian New Public Library; Nov. 13 at the Rota Elementary School; and Nov. 18 at the Nieves M. Flores Memorial Library in Hagatna, Guam.
