Borderland real estate broker uses pandemic to write children’s book, ‘I am a Tree’

EL PASO, Texas-- Being at home more during this pandemic has brought out the creative side in many people.

For one El Paso real estate broker, that creative side came in the form of a children’s book that he put on hold for a year, until now.

Scott Winton grew up in Clovis, New Mexico but spent six years of his life in El Paso when he was hired to do a real estate project for the First Presbyterian Church in El Paso, and it was at that church where he found the inspiration for his first children's book, 'I Am A Tree.'

“One day I was out there on the property and I saw this nice mesquite tree that was probably worth saving. It wasn’t by the parking lot. It was kind of by itself," Winton said..

The book is told in first person by that mesquite tree in the Chihuahuan desert. The tree survives the destruction of its ancestral home when a parking lot is built.

"So I started imagining the life that the tree might have had and the kind of experience that it might have and I thought that, maybe I should write a children’s book for my granddaughter who was a year and a half at the time,” Winton said.

He began the writing process for the book but work and life made him put a pause on completing it.

"Then I shelved it and didn’t really do anything with," Winton said. "Then with this pandemic I had a chance to pick it up again.”

With extra time at home during the pandemic, Winton's passion to finish his children's book was re-ignited.

“It became something that I just had to finish and get done otherwise it would get shelved again,” Winton said.

He wrote and illustrated 'I Am A Tree' to help his granddaughter understand that everything in life is connected and that we should always try to do good or we could be hurting ourselves.

“I believe that there’s actually an even deeper connections to everything in the universe and I think that it's important for a child to learn that at 8 or 9 years old. I think it gives them some value because they can understand that there is an interconnectedness between everything,” Winton said.

Although this pandemic has brought a few challenges for Winton he is glad that it brought an old passion back to life.

"We can choose how this pandemic is going to treat us and it can be something that can become limiting or it can become something that will help us advance.”

The E-book version of 'I Am A Tree' is available for pre-orders on Amazon. Click Here to place your order.