‘Carmella the Cruise Ship and Tommy the Tug’ is written and illustrated by Rosemary Carroll.
Rosemary Carroll has raised eight children, has run a photography studio, and has written, illustrated and published books. She has even taught art classes on a cruise ship.
What to do next? Why not write and illustrate a children’s book about a cruise ship and a tugboat who become friends?
Why not, indeed.
“I have a lot of energy,” said Bethany Beach resident Carroll, 74.
This year has been a hard one for her and her family, she said, having lost her husband, Bill, in March after a long fight with cancer.
Carroll said that as she moves forward with her life, “I decided to do all these things that were on the back burner,” during her husband’s illness, which included writing a book that had been bouncing around in her head for a while.
“Carmella the Cruise Ship and Tommy the Tug,” written and illustrated by Carroll, is currently available through Amazon.com and will soon be available in local bookstores, she said.
The book tells the tale of a mighty, somewhat self-absorbed cruise ship who finds herself in need of help from the tugboat she once shunned.
“I won’t have some tug like that pulling me!” Carmella shouts in the book. “What if he gets dirty soot on my hull? No! This won’t do! This won’t do at all!”
But, of course, Carmella gets her comeuppance once Tommy nudges her safely into port.
Along the way, readers learn about different types of boats, from tugs and pilot boats to container ships carrying cargo from faraway ports and cruise ships bound for fascinating places.
Bethany Beach photographer author, illustrator, publisher and zip-line instructor Rosemary Carroll has published her latest book, ‘Carmella the Cruise Ship and Tommy the Tug.’
Carroll’s family, she said, has a strong history in navigation. Her father was a ship captain who earned the Congressional Medal of Honor for his service during World War II. Most of her children have pursued careers in the field. Her daughter Kelly McCandless, whose likeness appears in Carroll’s new book, is a ship pilot in real life, just as she appears in the book.
Carroll herself, when she’s not painting or taking photographs, operates Delaware Maritime Education for young people who want to pursue a career in the maritime industry.
There’s also some information in the book’s glossary about Mercy Ships, which bring healthcare to people in need, mostly in sub-Saharan Africa but also in disaster-stricken areas all over the world.
Carroll said she choose the Mercy Ships organization to receive a significant portion of the profits from the book.
“They straighten out kids’ legs. The blind see because of them. People will literally walk for days to get to a coastal area and get on board” a Mercy Ship, she said.
“To me, if you’re not paying it forward, you’re not really living,” Carroll said. “That’s just how I feel.” She added that she hopes this book will be the first of many philanthropic projects for her.
“We’re put on this earth to do something, to do good. Whatever you can in your little circle,” she said.
Whatever that next project is, Carroll’s past endeavors prove she’s open to just about anything. As part of her work as a cruise ship art teacher, she said, she gets to accompany vacationers to various destinations where the ships dock.
And that’s not all.
“I teach people how to zip-line,” she said. “I’m almost 75 years old.”
She marveled at the things she’s been able to see and do while on the cruises.
“They helicopter us onto the glaciers,” she said. “That was so freakin’ amazing.”
“I couldn’t afford to travel like that” without the art-teacher gig, Carroll said. “But I can teach people how to paint.”
And now that she’s learned she can do that on a cruise ship, who knows where her next destination will be?
This post was originally published on here
