12-Year-Old Alicen Marie Felder Authors Book on Perseverance and Faith

Alicen Marie Felder didn’t    speak, crawl or reach other milestones until after her peers. Today, the 12-year-old is a self-published author and honor roll student at Pierce Middle School in Redford, sings as president of the cherubic choir at her church and crushes the competition on the soccer field. Alicen does all this while traveling to spread the story of how faith, perseverance and family brought her out of struggle and into the sunlight.

“Say a Little Prayer isn’t fiction – it’s my story,” Alicen says. “It’s about the issues I had in my earlier years when I couldn’t communicate the way I wanted to. I was very frustrated and upset; I’d get laughed at once the teacher left. I wanted to cry all the time and I felt isolated.”

Both Alicen and her mom say that prayer, patience and God’s work got Alicen over her hurdles. The chapter book follows Alicen’s journey of testing and diagnosis, and chronicles how she overcame her developmental setbacks.

“I always used to write my thoughts down, and I love reading and (English language arts). I had thoughts saved up. My mom and I were talking about what I went through one day, and I came up with the idea of sharing my story in the book. The main things that helped me were time, patience and prayer,” Alicen says.

Mom Dr. Kelli Felder, a speech pathologist, says she couldn’t be prouder of her daughter, even if the initial process of publishing a book was a bit of a crash-course in entrepreneurship. “I Googled like crazy, and we were just getting info and advice from everywhere. It was trial and error, and we’re still learning as we go,” Felder says.

Alicen says she wrote Say a Little Prayer to inspire anyone dealing with roadblocks to put faith in God’s glory and not doubt themselves or his timeline.

Say a Little Prayer is available on Apple Books, Amazon, Lulu and Bookmate.