School board president writes a children’s book

“Gust! Gust! Gust!” tells the story of a young boy’s journey as he navigates his fear of the wind through playing the bongos. The new book was written by Ray Jaramillo, director of Alpha School, Inc. preschool in Las Cruces and president of the Las Cruces Public Schools Board of Education. Jaramillo is also a member of the New Mexico Early Learning Advisory Council. He has a master’s of science degree in early childhood education and development.

“When Gust plays the bongos with his Tata during a heavy storm, the people in his village blame the bad storm on them and demand that they never play the bongos again,” Jaramillo said. “When the wind disappears from the village, Gust learns how important the wind is for the village’s survival.”

“This is my first book,” Jaramillo said. “It started out as a project (assignment) for my master’s program at Erikson Institute. The assignment was to write a STEM children’s book. I got an A on the project! I eventually read it to the children at my school and they seemed to enjoy the story. One child would ask me to read it every day. I eventually began the process to get my book published.

“Also, many years ago, I had a student that was terrified of the wind,” Jaramillo said. “I used to play music on the playground to drown out the sound of the wind for him. The tata in the story is my tata and the boy in the story is me (the publisher used old pictures of us to create the characters).”

“Gust! Gust! Gust!” was published by Page Publishing and is available at bookstores and online from Apple iTunes Store, Amazon, Google Play and Barnes & Noble.

Contact Jaramillo at 575-621-3205 and jaramilloray1@yahoo.com.