8 The Courier sun • november 6, 2014 for breaking news visit www.couriersun.com Cambria Heights author releases second book for kids BY ASHA MAHADEVAN editorial@queenscourier.com/@queenscourier Roslyn C. Thorpe, the Cambria Heights-based author of “RayRay’s Amazing Dream” (2012), is ready with her second book, called “Danny the New Kid in School.” As the title reveals, it tells the story of Danny as he faces setbacks and stares from other students in fifth grade. He then befriends Timmy and, together, they overcome the challenges of school. Thorpe, 65, said she drew inspiration for the book from what she has seen around her. In her 34-year teaching career, she has often noticed new children in school being bullied by other children. She hopes this book will help such children adjust to their new schools. Thorpe was born in St. Vincent and the Grenadines, and after teaching there for five years, she moved to the U.S. in 1987. She enrolled as an undergraduate in The College of New Rochelle. While she was studying there, one of her professors told her that she would make a great writer. “All these years I didn’t do anything about it,” she said. “Now that I am going to retire, I want to do something using my mental faculties, like writing. It is timeconsuming, but it is something I love to do.” She loves reading books that have a message and are a little suspenseful, she said, and that is why “Danny” has both those elements. It talks about the problems children new to a school face and ends with a hint about how Danny and Timmy’s story is not going to end with this book. “I am going to write a series of books about Danny — how he goes to junior high, then high school and college,” said Thorpe. While “RayRay” is a fully illustrated children’s book, “Danny” has only one illustration per chapter. It took Thorpe just an hour and a half to write “RayRay’s Amazing Dream” and “a couple of weeks,” she said, to complete “Danny.” However, that doesn’t mean that we’ll be reading about Danny’s next adventure Roslyn C. Thorpe, the Cambria Heights-based author of “RayRay’s Amazing Dream” any time soon. Now that “Danny” is out, Thorpe is moving on to a new set of characters for her next book. “I have an idea for a spooky story,” she said, “but this one will take more time and more concentration. It is about an invisible THE COURIER/Photo by Asha Mahadevan stalker and will be for young adults.” She also plans to write Christian books for readers in their late 20s and early 30s sometime in the future. If Thorpe is sure of one thing, it’s that: “I’ll never stop writing.” $50M Spring Creek flood mitigation project funded, design stage set to begin BY SALVATORE LICATA slicata@queenscourier.com @sal_Licata1 Superstorm Sandy may have shown the vulnerability of southern Queens to coastal flooding, but FEMA and New York state have now set aside $50 million to alleviate future flooding. The Spring Creek Hazard Mitigation Project, headed by the Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) and National Parks Service (NPS) is focused on Spring Creek, which serves as a barrier between Howard Beach and Jamaica Bay, south of the Belt Parkway. While the grant money has already been awarded, there are no specific construction plans yet. Once the project is designed, it will take about 18 months to finish. “Jamaica Bay was highly impacted by Sandy,” said Joanna Fields, a representative from the DEC. “Our goals are storm protection and creating an ecologically resilient system.” Design work is expected to start in August of 2015. This portion is estimated to cost around $3.3 million. Phase two is projected to start in December of 2015 and end in August 2017. This portion will be the actual construction of the design and will cost about $47 million. At this point, the DEC and NPS have not finalized the plans for Spring Creek. They are currently collecting data and looking at additional planning considerations to figure out the optimal usage for the site. Fields stressed that the money allotted to them from FEMA was for flood mitigation but said the usage of Spring Creek as a publicly accessible space is possible. “The National Parks Service is all about public access and our goal is to work with the community on it,” said Joshua Laird, commissioner of the THE COURIER/Photo by Salvatore Licata National Parks of New York Harbor. “If maintained and done right, this could be a great thing.” There are also no plans laid out for how exactly the land would be accessible, and Fields said they would not go ahead with designing it for the public until they came back to the community to talk about it. A view of Spring Creek.
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