Nancy Tupper Ling lives in Walpole. When her childhood friend gave birth to a daughter with Down syndrome, Ling wrote the baby a poem, ``Our Fragile Emissary,'' a love song that has been e-mailed around the world.

Six year later, Ling wrote her first children's book about this child, ``My Sister, Alicia May.'' She sent it to a Raynham publisher, Pleasant St. Press. The co-owner, Jean Cochran, a children's book author herself, loved the manuscript, bought it, and then went looking for an illustrator.