Graduating as a top 10 senior is an accomplishment in and of itself, but for Montwood High School senior Keira Jensen, that’s only a page in her story. This spring, she’ll walk across the stage with something not many other high school students can claim; she’s a published author.

Jensen teamed up with junior Tiffany Gavaldon, a fellow Montwood student, to co-write and illustrate “Not Just a Bow,” a children’s book about a 10-year-old girl named Chloe, a cheerleader with a passion that goes deeper than glitter and pom poms.

“It ‘Not Just a Bow’ tells a story of a young cheerleader, Chloe,” Jensen said. “She does various activities outside of cheer. She loves doing science fair, hanging out with her friends, reading and all that stuff.”

The children’s story highlights the good and bad aspects of Chloe’s life, focusing on the challenges of stereotypes, which Jensen and Gavaldon have both experienced during their time in cheer.

“Besides the great parts of her life, she talks about the negative aspects to cheerleading. It dives into the stereotypes associated with the sport that my co-author Tiffany (and I) have both experienced because we’ve both been cheerleaders for a really long time,” Jensen said. “It takes Chloe through a journey of self-love, and she realizes that yes, there might always be people that don’t like what she does, but she’s not going to stop doing what she does because she loves her life.”

Both being longtime cheerleaders and top students of their classes, Jensen and Gavaldon have seen those same stereotypes play out in real life.

“We’re both very academically inclined,” Jensen said. “We’re both top 10. We’re both part of the same Synergi biomedical program. We see the negative stereotypes associated with the sport a lot. Even our teachers, a lot of the time they kind of view us in a negative way.”

The idea of Jensen and Gavaldon creating a book started casually during a uniform fitting leading up to a cheer season.

“We thought we were going to do a novel at first about our cheer experience,” Gavaldon said. “It was around this time last year that we had our first conversation about it while we were in line to get fitted for our uniforms.”

From there, the coauthors began writing in March 2024, splitting up responsibilities to fit their strengths. Jensen handled the book’s visuals, while Gavaldon handled the book’s marketing.

“Being a coauthor was just easy to do with Keira,” Gavaldon said. “We were bouncing ideas off of each other and we really just depended on each other. When we were first starting to get it published it was kind of a hectic situation. Knowing I could reach out to her was great.”

Despite busy schedules, Jensen and Gavaldon ultimately had “Not Just a Bow” approved and published in October 2024.

“We were really worried that it wouldn’t go through, the anticipation was killing us. We were both out of town and we started promoting it before we knew it was going to be approved. We had no certainty that it was going to process, we feel like we manifested it and we really worked hard for it and we got it out there,” Gavaldon said. “I’m starting to get the grasp on the gravity of what we really did; high school students normally don’t just publish children’s books on the daily.”

In the months following the release of the book, Jensen and Gavaldon returned to their old middle school, Bill Sybert, to read the book to younger students during National Library Week, including Bill Sybert’s cheer team.

“It was nice to see all the young faces light up when talking about our story and when we mentioned that we wrote the book, because we felt like it inspired kids,” Gavaldon said. “A lot of the teachers were being very supportive.”

As graduation approaches for Jensen, she says this book feels like the perfect way to wrap up her time at Montwood.

“Going into high school, I never really thought this was something I would accomplish,” Jensen said. “This is just bigger than I could have ever imagined, it really means a lot to be graduating as a published author, that’s something I’m most proud of in my high school career.”

With Jensen heading off to Columbia University in the fall, the two coauthors are each going into a new chapter of life. Although their paths may take them in different directions, they’ll always have something special to hold on to; the book they created together.

Iziah Moreno is the photo editor and may be reached at [email protected]