St. John Author Introduces ‘Abbey the Ant’ at Book Signing

When single mother Shatik Stevens found herself stricken with COVID-19 and on the tough end of a layoff notice, she said she wondered where life would lead her next. The answer came quickly in the form of a writing enterprise serving young readers.

On Saturday, former St. John Festival Queen Stevens sat down to a table in Mongoose Junction to sign copies of her latest children’s book.

Abbey the Ant is the author’s 26th title. It was presented to local readers at a book signing event held Saturday at Bajo El Sol Art Bar and Rum Room. Admirers lined up to get autographed copies throughout the two-hour event, snapping photos with much of the camerawork performed by Abbey the Ant’s illustrator, Vakai Gumbs.

The visual work shows its strength in supporting the story of Abbey, a tiny creature living in a tree. Each page is vividly colored, framing the sentence or the phrase that tells the heroine’s tale about the day she overcame her fears to climb down her home in the tree to the ground.