Welcome to the Sandy Stockings home page. This website was built to support the series of books I Wanna Be. Sandy Stockings is having a tough year, and sixth grade has only just begun! She feels like the smallest person in the world, especially in her new middle school where the school bully hates her guts. Home is no refuge either. Her father passed away a few years ago, and all the life seems to have gone out of her mother at the same time. Now Sandy is as lonely as can be, left only with vague dreams of being an actress like her mother once was. But when she finds a special, mysterious book about a lonely little bee named Asher, Sandy is able to make some changes in her life so she can start to be who she is meant to be.

An inspiring story for children ages 9 - 15, I Wanna Be.offers readers a touching journey with a lovable heroine and lessons in bee-coming whoever we dream of bee-ing!

I Wanna Be., by John Jacobs, Cameo Publications, LLC, $9.95, 144 pages (August 2006), available at bookstores and online at BarnesandNoble.com or Amazon.com.

Read below for a review of the book...

Middle school can be tough on any child, but when you're the target of the school bully, and your home offers no refuge from your loneliness, it can be even harder. How can little Sandy Stockings get through each day, much less become the person she wants to be? The answers come to her unexpectedly in the form of an old handmade book about a bumbling bee who becomes a leader of his hive.

In his new book, I Wanna Be., business leader, educator, and motivational speaker John Jacobs has created a loveable heroine in Sandy, whose trials and triumphs pre-teens and teens will relate to and learn from.

Uninspired and lonely, Sandy barely gets through her days at school. Her neighbor, Clyde, whose hand-me-downs she must wear, persecutes her every chance he gets, and her teachers largely ignore her, dismissing Sandy as a problem student. It wasn't always this way: Sandy's father was killed several years before in a tragic accident, and her mother, who has sunk into a deep depression, refuses to discuss him. Sandy is left to fend for herself while her mother sleeps her life away, rousing herself only long enough to pore over old memories. Searching for something to fill in the missing pieces of her memory, Sandy finds a mysterious book about a bee named Asher who, like Sandy, doesn't fit in until he learns to "Become, Be near, and Be ready." Asher's lessons and the attention of her school's drama teacher, Ms. Bridgewater, propel Sandy into action, racing along the path to becoming who she wants to be.

I Wanna Be.features beautiful illustrations in its unique book-within-the-book format, titled "Three B's for a Wanna Be." Young readers will experience Asher's story along with Sandy and find inspiration for their own lives in its simple but important lessons. Author Jacobs seeks to help his readers believe in themselves and their unique gifts, keenly aware that the many challenges and pitfalls of growing up can make most children feel far from perfect.

Both poignant and funny, I Wanna Be.offers readers its motivational lessons without ever preaching to them or pounding them over them over the head with the obvious or the impossibly difficult. Rather, Jacob gently guides his readers so deftly on a journey toward true achievement that they may not realize they're learning along with Sandy until they begin to apply the book's ideas in their own lives.

Though it's main audience will be younger readers, I Wanna Be.can inspire readers of all ages to become whatever, and whoever, they wanna be. A portion of the book's proceeds go to Jacobs' Sandy Stockings Foundation, an organization dedicated to helping people fulfill their dreams. More information on the foundation is available at www.sandystockings.com
Click here for the press release.