About the Author

Nila J. Webster wrote The Gift of You, The Gift of Me as a direct response to an incident of bullying at a school.  As a child, she learned from her mother, Rochester poet jani johe webster, that through creative writing and envisioning, we can transform difficult situations into positive energy, from which rainbows will always flow.  She wrote The Gift of You, The Gift of Me in one sitting, on the Saturday before Mother's Day.   Surrounded by the beauty of spring, she listened to her inner Muse and translated her vision of kindness and gratitude into this book.  She frequently receives letters from school children who write that they love Jamile's courage and his magical friendship with the trees, and that in reading the book, they are reminded that we are all gifts to one another, and to ourselves.  In knowing we are all gifts, bullying dissolves and becomes acceptance, respect and love.

Her textbook Literature for the Journey continues to be used in the classroom.  An essay of hers appeared in More Random Acts of Kindness.  She has written of the healing power of compassion for the Annals of Internal Medicine and other medical journals, and has spoken at medical conferences on the value of empathy.  For many years, she has visited schools to talk to students about the magic and wonder of our imagination.  She has co-authored two picture books with her mother: Remember Rain and Songs of Wonder for the Night Sea Journey and Remember Beauty and Songs for a Blue Time.  Lines from one of her mother's poems, "it's a gift / this day" have become her guiding light.