Northwest Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
Student writes book about classmates
ROGERS — Sarah Treacy had little trouble getting her classmates to open up and tell her about their lives.
Treacy, a senior at Rogers High School, interviewed and photographed 114 of her classmates. She compiled the photos and excerpts from those interviews in a book, titled Students, a project which took hundreds of hours.
It didn’t stem from a school assignment. It wasn’t anything she had to do. She just wanted to do it.
“I like helping people learn about the depth of each individual person,” said Treacy, 18. “Because when you’re 15, 16, 17, you don’t think about that much else except yourself that often. So to understand that each individual has feelings, thoughts and a life is a big realization I hope to foster.”
Her inspiration came from the 2013 book Humans of New York by Brandon Stanton, who photographed and wrote about people he met on the streets of New York City. Treacy started her project two years ago.
In her book, one boy talks about his first kiss with another boy. Another shares his story about overcoming an addiction to painkillers. A Mexican student talks about living in the United States illegally and how his friends who’re legal residents take everything for granted.
“It’s a lot easier than you would think to ask people to tell you about their lives,” Treacy said.
Students is published through Amazon’s Kindle Direct Publishing. It became available for purchase in September on Amazon.com. Treacy designed the cover, which depicts drawings of teens in various poses — all linked by a single line, which is meant to symbolize all students are connected, she said.
She was determined to provide a free copy to each of the 114 teens featured in the book. She used the Facebook account of her father, Bill Treacy, last month to issue a plea for donations. She raised about $2,000 in 36 hours, more than enough to cover the cost.
She used the extra money to buy copies of the book for other students in her class, as well as some for a few staff members and two copies for the school library.
Treacy makes no money off the book. The cost of $17.40 is just enough to cover printing, she said. She’s not made any effort to advertise the book.
Though the students’ photographs are published in the book, their names aren’t.
Miguel Garcia, 18, is one of the students in the book. He’s quoted talking about the sacrifices his parents made for him as immigrants to the United States and how he got into drawing as an eighth-grader.
“I thought it was really nice speaking my mind and getting my opinions out there, telling a little of my story,” Garcia said. “It was therapeutic and just nice talking to someone about things that are really important to you.”
Reading other students’ stories gave him a new perspective on his classmates.
“It was really enlightening,” Garcia said. “For the other people in our class who read this book, I would hope it gives them that same mind-opening experience.”
Treacy mentioned a girl from one of her AP classes she described as “happygo-lucky and super sweet.” During her interview with her, Treacy found out the girl has been living with her grandmother all of her life and her mother died of a drug overdose a few years ago.
Treacy braced herself for negative feedback from her classmates when the book came out, but the response has been overwhelmingly positive, she said.
“It’s mostly just changed perspectives,” she said. “I have one girl who’s writing an essay about my book for college, which is really nice. I’ve had a couple of people who told me they cried, which is not an accomplishment, but it feels like an accomplishment to evoke an emotional response that strong.”
People ask Treacy if she wants to be a writer when she grows up.
“Not really, actually,” she said. “I kind of want to be a biologist.”
Lewis Villines, Rogers High School principal, said last week he hadn’t seen the book but was looking forward to reading it.
Marjorie Treacy, Sarah’s mother, said she didn’t realize how big a project the book would become when her daughter first told her about the idea. She insisted Sarah get her subjects’ parents to give permission for their children to be in the book. They consulted a lawyer, who drew up a permission form for Treacy to use.
Marjorie Treacy said she learned from reading Students teens deal with a lot more issues than she thought. She’s proud of her daughter for following through on the project.
“I think she has learned an incredible amount about people, and it’s given her a whole other perspective on life, whether she realizes it or not,” Marjorie Treacy said. “I think she’s enjoyed it and made some new friends. I think that she hopes all the kids in the book realize how special they are.”