Jackie Danckwart Rust

The crime was never reported to the police because my parents did not consider it a crime, but it changed my life. A sixteen year old neighbor boy molested me when I was ten years old. Now it is forty-five years later and I am a writer of children’s picture books and a reading tutor for elementary school children. I decided to bring my writing, teaching, and assault into this story. When I started writing the story I hoped it would be published as a picture book, to keep the same thing from happening to other children, but I received a surprise: it helped me heal. I thought I would be simply writing a story, but then the tears started. I relived the neighbor wanted to get in bed with us, the attack, and my parents response. Twelve years of therapy had helped me deal with the molestation, but it took this story for me to finally heal.