DALLAS (1080 KRLD) - Vail Johnson was a thriving 9-year-old girl from Pilot Point. She brought people together, she loved to read and write, and she was developing into quite the equestrian.
"The best think about Vail was just how silly and funny (she was)," says her mom, Susan Chance. "And what a sharp wit and sense of humor she had."
One August night in 2016, Vail went to sleep and never woke up. She died from a heart condition, Myocarditis.
As Vail's family was grieving, her teachers banded together to reveal some precious stories the young girl had authored.
"As they read them at the funeral, I think we realized how ahead of her time she was," says Susan. "Some of these stories were shocking at how deep they were."
As Susan says, you're never done grieving. But as time moved on, Susan kept coming back to these stories that her little girl had penned.
"I started thinking, what I would love to do is have her stories rewritten into a form that could actually be read to kids. Proper spelling, proper punctuation, but still keeping her story in it," said Susan.
So the quest to write "Vail's Tales" was born. And after some trial and error, the family found Ed Payne. A children's author from Metro Atlanta.
"Vail's story spoke beyond her years," says Payne. "What I told Susan from the start was that I couldn't promise her that the final stories that I wrote would be identical to Vail's. What I promised her is that it would be inspired by what Vail wrote."
Ed wrote four stories, all based on Vail's writings. And the result is an 80-page masterpiece: Vail's Tales. And Vail's stepdad, Chad Chance is so proud of the book with a greater purpose.
"Through the foundation (Friends of Vail Foundation), childhood literacy is our main goal," says Chad. "Try to get books into the hands of the kids that need some inspiration in their lives."
Vail's Tales is available online, including at Amazon, where if you purchase through Smile.Amazon.com, you can donate a portion of your purchase to the Friends of Vail Foundation.