Rising Stars: Meet Zalina Jani

Today we’d like to introduce you to Zalina Jani. 

Hi Zalina, we’d love for you to start by introducing yourself.
Hello, my name is Zalina Jani; I create picture books for children together with my 4-year-old son Sameer Jani.

I believe our story started when Sameer asked me after reading another book for kids: “Mama, can I also be an author?” I replied to him: “Of course, you can; you can be anything you want to be.” But I knew that very moment I had to show him the way. I had to prove that those were not just words.

So, together we started working on our first book titled Chocovela Plays Tennis.

Sameer invented the character of a little alligator named Chocovela, who loves playing sports, and while playing he also learns some important skills like positive attitude, focus, overcoming fears, and confidence. I made hand-drawn illustrations for the books, and a few months later with the support of my husband and Sameer’s dad Rohan Jani we were published authors.

Now we have 3 books in this series and we are working on bringing to life many more wonderful stories for kids. You can follow our journey on Instagram and Facebook through the links below.

We get our inspiration from our own experiences. Sameer is practicing his tennis at USTA in Orlando, he loves playing soccer with his dad, and we love spending time on the beach.

Just recently Sameer took part in the local Children’s business fair where he presented Chocovela books. He was the youngest participant among other 80 children entrepreneurs.

Alright, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall, and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
Learning the whole process of self-publishing was quite overwhelming at first. So many new things: putting the story together, editing, illustrating, formatting, and the biggest challenge for most self-published authors: marketing. Interestingly the message of our first book helped us to keep moving forward. The story teaches the kids to embrace the challenges and learn from difficulties. “Difficult makes you better”- is the main idea of the book Chocovela Plays Tennis.

In the future, we hope to make our books available to every child in the world.

Thanks for sharing that. So, maybe next you can tell us a bit more about your work?
We have published 3 books:

1. Chocovela Plays Tennis. A story about Positive Attitude;

2. Chocovela Plays Soccer. A story about Focus;

3. Chocovela Surfs. A story about Overcoming Fear.

The books in the collection aim to promote positive attitude, growth, and learning mindset. The mission of the books in this series is to help children develop skills like persistence and perseverance, to encourage kids to be active and happy, and practice different sports like tennis, soccer, swimming, etc.

In each book we included a vocabulary with positive affirmations for kids that are easy to understand and use in their day-to-day life.

Currently, the books are available worldwide on Amazon in paperback and e-book formats.

So maybe we end on discussing what matters most to you and why?
We really hope that our books can help kids deal with the challenges they face in their daily life. The power of books is incredible.

Seeing kids holding our books in their hands and knowing that our books can inspire and make a difference in the world are the most important things for me and Sameer.

Of course, as a mom, I am also truly honored to share this creative journey with my son.

Contact Info:

• Email: chocovelabooks@gmail.com
• Website: https://www.amazon.com/Zalina-Jani/e/B09T2G2X5D
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/zalina.jani/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Zalina-Jani-108526044805184/