A young boy in Idaho is sharing his writing and drawing talents with his community, thanks to his local library.
According to Good Morning America, 8-year-old Dillon Helbig of Ada, Idaho, wants to be a comic book author when he grows up. In fact, he's already written and illustrated several different stories.
Dillon told Good Morning America that he's been visiting his branch of the Ada County Library near Boise "since he was a baby." For years, he's wanted to share his work with the library so others can read it.
So, during a recent visit, Dillon left his copy of his latest comic book, "The Adventures of Dillon Helbig's Crismis" by "Dillon His Self" on the shelves hoping that someone else would find it.
When Dillon told his mom, she phoned the library to make sure the book wasn't misplaced or thrown away. When branch manager Alex Hartman found out, he cataloged the book into the Ada County Library's system and put it out on the shelves with the rest of their graphic novels.
“Dillon is a confident guy and a generous guy. He wanted to share the story,” Hartman told The Washington Post. “I don’t think it’s a self-promotion thing. He just genuinely wanted other people to be able to enjoy his story. … He’s been a lifelong library user, so he knows how books are shared.”
Dillon says he was inspired to leave his book at the library because his dad, Alex, used to stash burned CDs of his own music at local libraries in the hopes he would be discovered.
"My dad did this when he was a kid and kept doing it. He had a lot of records," Dillon told Good Morning America. "I didn't know he had 100 of them; I only had one book."
"The Adventures of Dillon Helbig's Crismis" is an 81-page book illustrated with colored pencil. According to the Ada County Library, the book tells the story about Dillon's "adventures at the North Pole and Winter Camp, as well as what happens when he is swallowed by a turkey."
The book has been a big hit with his community. In fact, The Washington Post reports that there was a 55-person waitlist for Dillon's book, as of Saturday. Given the library's four-week rental period, that means it could take more than four years for everyone on the list to get a chance to read it.
The good news for those on the waitlist? Dillon says he's working on a sequel — a story partially based on his own life about a closet that eats jackets.
