Managing two jobs at once can be difficult, but it isn’t impossible. By day, kindergarten teacher Ashtar Nahhas works with students and at night she manages shipping her book Children’s Tales of Assyria: Ashurbanipal’s library.

For those who may be unfamiliar with the book, “it takes you on a journey through Ashurbanipal’s life from when he was a child to an adult. In addition, it shows you what he accomplished along the way. The book overall uses simple language and colorful pictures,” Nahhas said.

Behind every book, there is always a purpose, but what was Nahhas’ reason?

“Being a kindergartner teacher, I realized that a lot of the children’s picture books didn’t represent a lot of the community looked like. I’ve always been very proud to be Assyrian, and I want people from all over the world to know who Assyrians are and not just in a small isolated place like Skokie or Lincolnwood. I wanted to make sure children were seeing themselves in picture books, and it wasn’t just white kids all the time,” Nahhas said.

Finding time to do anything while being a teacher can be difficult, but it isn’t impossible. “At work, I really utilize that time to get my school stuff done, so that at home I can concentrate on my book. Also, I don’t have children, so it makes it easier to work on my book considering I still have me time. When I’m at home, I focus on marketing, selling, packaging, and shipping. On Saturday, I also use that time to just sit down, print all the stamps, stamp everything, and just ship it,” said Nahhas.

Publishing a book may seem very easy, but it isn’t. Like with everything in life, you need to overcome some challenges to receive a great outcome. “The hardest part about publishing this book was the illustrations. I really wanted the book to reflect the images of the characters I’ve formed in my mind, so it was a struggle to really make sure the illustrators saw the vision I had for the story,” Nahhas said.

As children we always dreamed about becoming something, but as we grew up those interests changed. So did Nahhas always want to be a writer or was it just unexpected? Nahhas says, “Throughout high school, I was really into journalism and that’s all I thought I really wanted to do. When I went away for college though, I got a job working at a daycare center and realized how much I love working with children.”

It’s not every day you hear people finally reach their goals, and for that, congratulations to Nahhas and her book. Make sure to keep an eye out for her new upcoming book called the “Children’s Tales of Assyria: The Epic of Gilgamesh.”