PHILADELPHIA (KYW Newsradio) — A former Philly television news anchor has written a children's book that appeals to people of all ages. It's based on a true story, so children can see the real-life photos of the animals after they read it.
Janet Zappala is a familiar voice in the Greater Philadelphia region. Before moving to the West Coast, she spent years as an anchor and reporter at NBC 10. In between projects, she volunteers her time at the Coachella Valley Horse Rescue. She explained how her book, "Guapo's Giant Heart: The True Story of the Calf Who Kept Growing," came to be.
"This really was a fluke," she said. "The director [of the horse rescue] came up to me one night when I was mucking the stalls. She came to me with a picture and said, 'Janet, you have got to see this picture. Look at this huge steer. He is almost 3,000 pounds and he is best friends with our pig, Mabel.'"
Guapo, which means "handsome" in Spanish, was rescued as a baby calf. A normal steer weights 1,000 to 1,500 pounds, but Guapo weighed more than twice that. Because he is so large, Zappala said, the farm animals kept their distance at first, except for Mabel, a pot-bellied pig.
"We all have our similarities. We all have our differences as well and that is what makes us all unique. And that was what happened with these animals," Zappala noted.
"They're watching him from afar and judging him by his size. Judging that proverbial book by its cover ... we don't want to do that because we will never know what is on the inside."
Zappala said when the animals saw how gentle he was with Mabel, he became friends with all of them. "The other animals are watching and they are thinking, 'Look how sweet he is. Maybe we can be friends with him.' And then ultimately they all become best buddies and they realize ... that his heart is as big as his size," she said.
"There aren't a lot of children's books that are based on true stories," Zappala added, "so at the end of the book, we have photos of the featured characters in the book. So the children will be able to read and bond with the animals throughout the book and then at the end, see the real characters in these photos."
A portion of the proceeds will go to a horse rescue out west, but Janet hopes this will spark donations to the many rescues in the Delaware Valley.
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