I’m Evan Ducker. I’m just like every other 15-year-old teenager, except that I was born with a red birthmark .Doctors don’t know the exact cause of birthmarks like mine---but they do know it occurs in about 3 of every 1,000 children all over the world.
Some birthmarks are marks of serious medical conditions. I’m very fortune--mine isn’t. I pretty much live a regular life, except for people asking me about it all the time, which can get me annoyed sometimes. But, overall, my birthmark is just a spot on my skin. It’s not harmful to other people.
When I was about 4 years old, I asked my mom why there weren’t any characters with birthmarks in the books she would read for me. When we went to the library, we realized there weren’t any for little kids. My mom knew I was disappointed. There weren’t any books with cool characters who had birthmarks.
So she said we could write our own. She took all my ideas and we created the first book of its kind to educate kids about birthmarks and also offer a more realistic, positive character with a birthmark. I based the story on all real things that happened in my life. But instead of people, the  characters in the book are real animals from the Galapagos Islands, including a red-footed bird. When people ask why I picked a red-footed bird as the main character, I tell them that the bird has red feet, similar to a human birthmark! He is pretty cool.
It was really tough to get my book published. It took a long time because a lot of publishers refused it. They would tell my family there wasn’t a market big enough for a book about birthmarks. But we knew the book wasn’t about birthmarks. It was about tolerance for people’s differences in general. We just picked a character with a birthmark because that was what I knew.
Why did Evan say he was very fortunate? ( no more than 12 words)
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Why did Evan want to write a book with characters who had birthmarks? (no more than 15 words)
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What does the underlined word “tough” mean? ( no more than 3 words)
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What did Evan think of the main character in his book? ( no more than 5 words)
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In your opinion, how would you treat a friend with a birthmark?
( no more than 20 words)
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