What’s in a name?

A lot apparently if you’re called The Rubber-Nosed Swamp Donkey.

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The funny name is actually a character in a book published by two Port Coquitlam students, and the book, The Rubber-Nosed Swamp Donkey, is a fundraiser for the Castle Park learning garden.

Hot off the presses, the book is for sale and author Owen Carlsen, and illustrator Kianna Hrabinsky, hope it will be a big seller.

“I like the concept of making a book, I think it’s fun but it takes awhile,” acknowledged Carlsen, who came up with the idea in December after learning that a popular name for moose in some quarters is Rubber-Nosed Swamp Donkey.

The story is about a moose who loses his confidence and goes on a journey to reclaim it. Eventually he learns the valuable lesson that it’s OK to be yourself, according to Carlsen, who is in Grade 3.

Kianna Hrabinsky, who is in Grade 5, got involved in the book project at the recommendation of a teacher.

She spent hours working on the drawings to match the words in Carlsen’s story.

It was a great collaboration, she said, and she’s proud of the results.

“I love art,” she said, noting that it still a bit of was a challenge to colour the images evenly with pencil crayons but worth it.

The book is for sale at the school for $10 to raise funds for a school learning garden that will have a gathering space with leveled seating, play mounds with climbing ropes, urban planters for vegetable gardens, hopscotch paths, a large sand play area and an outdoor classroom with seating under shade trees.

“It’s supposed to take more years than I’m going to be here, I’m going to have to make books more quickly, maybe in the summer,” Carlsen commented.

Book sales will help fundraising underway, with about $45,000 already collected.

Grade 1 teacher Paige Olson said a planning team of parents and teachers is still working on plans and raising funds with the goal of getting at least the first phase complete this year.

“It’s for hands on learning and helping children appreciate the environment because they will be the future of the world,” Olson told The Tri-City News.

To purchase a book, contact the school at 604-468-8620.