Muldoon’s Karlee Kelly Has Children’s Book Published

A Fayette County native recently released a children’s book. Karlee Kelly, or Charles Higgins if you prefer her pen name, wrote and published “RABBiT.” This book is the story of a young boy named Rabbit who catches petty criminals by pure dumb luck, and his friend, Aubrey, who attempts to prove that Rabbit’s misadventures are more than just coincidence.

“It’s kind of like a flip on the Sherlock Holmes and Encyclopedia Brown stories. Instead of a really smart detective, what if it wasn’t a super bright kid, but he was just really lucky. What would that look like?” said Kelly.

Kelly grew up in Muldoon, participating in the local 4-H chapter and VBS at her church every year. Being the third of six children, Kelly has had plenty of experiences she can draw from as inspiration for adventures and characters in her book.

Kelly is currently attending New St. Andrew’s College in Moscow, Idaho, pursuing a Bachelor of Arts in liberal arts and culture. At first, she wasn’t sure whether she wanted to pursue a college degree or just jump right into the writing scene. But Kelly ended up deciding to attend St. Andrew’s at the encouragement of her mother, as well as her older sister who also attended the college.

“A liberal arts degree is so broad. It can be a basis for you throughout the rest of your life and whatever you choose, it helps you be a better learner and thinker,” said Kelly. “...So far, it has really helped me be a better observer of the world and be able to think things through more intelligently so that I can express what I want to say better.”

In the future, Kelly wants to eventually dabble in nonfiction writing, as well as film. Throughout her writing career, she intends to use the same pen name under which she published “RABBiT,” Charles Higgins. For those curious as to how Kelly came up with this name, it was actually her father who suggested it to her. He, according to Kelly, heard the name and immediately thought of her; it “just sounded like an author name.”

Kelly also plans to turn her “RABBiT” book into a trilogy. In fact, she already has a rough draft typed up for the second book. For those who may have already read book one and are wondering just what to expect in the second story, Kelly describes it as “a lot more adventurous.”

“There are some new characters, a lot of returning characters, new friendships…” said Kelly. “Aubrey starts trying to understand how this luck works and whether or not it’s all just chaos. You start getting hints that maybe it’s not just small random disconnected events, that the crime might be actually connected to some bigger person behind it all.”

“RABBiT” is available for purchase from Barnes & Noble, Amazon and Nogginnose Press, her book publisher.