Writing my Third book: ‘The Road to Joseph’

Putting together the story of The Road to Joseph looked like me spinning several plates at once, and once they were all spinning together, they produced a storybook of dazzling illustrations which shimmered with Christmas colour. 

And yet, all that shimmers is not gold. 

Because the real gold in the making of this story is not found in the resulting shimmer. It’s found in the way that God created a sharp and beautifully ordered story out of the jumble of scenes in my mind! A story that will take your child on a roller coaster of emotions and lead him/her to a peaceful and a satisfying ending. And that my friend is God being simply stunning!

The bookends to my story

I wanted the other bookend to be about Joseph's prophetic dream because it nicely reflects what happens to Chris in the story: God speaking to him through a dream. Have you also noticed the lily in both images? St. Joseph’s images often have a lily somewhere within them, and they are meant to reflect his purity of heart and body. I thought it would be a nice touch to include a lily in these images, too.

The storyline

In this story, little Chris is desperate to play St. Joseph in his school nativity. But unlike in my previous storybooks, he doesn’t pray to God for help with this! But isn’t this what we all do at some point in our lives. We think we can handle a situation without God. We think we don’t need God’s help, this time, because we think we have got it all under control. And so, we don’t pray. But the fact is that we need God’s help all the time and it’s good to be mindful of this.

So, what happens in this story is that God appears to Chris in a dream and promises him the role of St. Joseph in his school nativity play. God hasn’t forgotten about Chris, even though Chris has not checked in with Him! In Chris’ dream, God asks the 6-year-old if he will believe in His prophetic words. Chris gives a very strong ‘Yes’ but with the passing of time and with several setbacks, his initial trust in God the Father’s promise wanes and almost disappears.

His best friend, Shani, is the one whom God uses to help Chris reaffirm his trust. I am sure you, like myself, have been supported by a trusted friend when you were feeling down or perhaps when your trust in God had hit rock bottom.

Then, right at the last-minute God comes through for Chris! This episode in his young lifestretches Chris’ ‘trust muscles’ like they have never been stretched before! And this turns out to be a recurring theme in our lives-doesn’t it. God is always stretching us-just that bit more-to learn how to surrender more fully to Him.

So, for children listening to ‘The Road to Joseph’ and for the adults reading it, this story begs us to trust in our God when He speaks. And even when things seem to be going in the opposite direction, we need to continue to keep trusting God right to the end. Because in the end: God’s promises always come to pass.

When my ‘Trust Muscles’ were really s-t-r-e-t-c-h-e-d



Recently, I had to trust God as I had never trusted Him before. I felt completely powerless as I watched one of my relatives become very unwell. As my mind was spinning with what I should do to help this situation, I felt God speak into my heart, “This is too big for you, let Me do it”. As I walked around my neighbourhood, wondering how God would help, I looked up into the sky and saw a breakthrough in the clouds. It was beautiful, and through this beauty, I felt Him say that a breakthrough was coming. I clung to God’s voice with a sort of blind faith mixed with an emotional numbness in the midst of what was an extremely difficult situation. And then, suddenly, within days, the breakthrough happened. This is the photo of that very sky, through which God spoke to me.

The Source of my Story

So, back to the story. This is how ‘The Road to Joseph’ was conceived…

When my brother, Chris, was about 12 years old, I saw him bowl in a cricket match at his school. As my brother prepared to bowl the cricket ball, I noticed the look of fear in his eyes. Massive nerves just before he had to perform. I never saw this look again - but I never forgot it either. It made such an impression on me. So, with the background of a child having nerves before performing in a school play, ’The Road to Joseph’ started to take shape within my heart and in my mind. 

Starting at the end

This memory finds itself woven into the very end of the story…so all I had at the beginning was an ending! But how would I then create a story where Chris ends up on the stage? I decided that nativity plays are common in British schools, and so I would use this as a vehicle. From there, I decided that Chris would need to try out for the part of Joseph, but fail… a couple of times at least. But I also needed something else to add tension to the story and tug at the audience's heartstrings…

It was then that I had the idea of Chris having an accident and needing to be on crutches for a couple of weeks! This would impact his role in the nativity and would definitely make lifehard for him. In this scene I wanted to create a mood of concern on the part of Chris’ parentsas they see their son lying in a hospital bed. Thankfully, my illustrator lit up the scene and gave it some balance with this gorgeous looking doctor with a beaming smile! By the way, he is based on one of my brother’s good friends!

So, at this point all I had was a jumble of events out of which I still needed to craft into a story!

How was God going to talk to Chris?

As I said in the ‘Bookends’ section, I wanted God to speak to Chris in a prophetic dream. And as I started to think about this, the idea came to me of the scene being in God’s throne room filled with the scent of roses: that was God speaking to me!

I had heard of the ‘odour of sanctity’ emanating from the holiest of people e.g. St. Padre Pio. This odour of sanctity has been described as smelling of roses, lilies and even frankincense. God’s throne room would definitely smell of the ‘odour of sanctity’, right? So, I asked my illustrator to fill the throne room with roses! Even the colour pink going right up to the top of the illustration gives a sense of the smell of roses pervading the air. I think she did a beautiful job.

Jumble of ideas

So, you can see that I had this collection of ideas to somehow piece together- and that’s whenGod performed His miracle of bringing order out of chaos and making something beautiful. Slowly but surely my little story started to take shape. It became a fast-moving and dramaticstory with lots happening! And, I accidentally interjected some humour without realising it- as Chris dressed up in his cow suit!

Having put together most of the dramatics of the story I still had to work on the ending. I knew that Chris had to have stage fright, but I had no idea how to work it into the story! So, I had him say in his mind “I can’t do this! I can’t do this!” just as he was about to walk onto the stage as Joseph. And then I had the idea of Chris remembering the words that his teacherhad previously spoken in the story, which could then give him some comfort. Lastly, I also had Chris draw comfort from Shani’s deep brown eyes. And if you hadn’t realised: this is because Shani is Chris’ love interest! Yes, even at the age of 6: it happens! 

Finding My Book Title



This was tricky for me. I had a few ideas for a title, but I wasn’t convinced by any of them. To try to find the right title, I thought I would take my audience's advice! It made sense to see what they would find compelling. So, I arranged two local events, each called ‘The Joseph Event’. And I invited parents with young children from two neighbouring parishes to join in the fun. At each event, I brought in a carpenter (as St. Joseph was a carpenter) to make wood curls with the children, and I invited everyone to vote for a title or suggest one. There was food, music and a great atmosphere!



Each event had ‘pots’ to vote for one of my suggested titles (as above), and I also had a Secret Suggestions box, where adults and children could post their own ideas. The first event offered me a whole range of secret suggestions, but somehow none of them really grabbed my heart. After the second event, the most-voted-for title by a big margin was ‘The Road to Joseph’. This was actually the first book title that I had thought of! So, oddly enough, though I had gone full circle, I felt that this was the title that I should use for my book! 



As well as the theme of trusting in God, ‘The Road to Joseph’ also explores friendship, supporting your child’s faith, and the God of the eleventh hour! To find out more about these themes and to perhaps buy a copy, please click on the link below:

Guide to ‘The Road to Joseph’ by Tammy Fernando