Rosie & Friends, Adventures of a Flower Truck is a delightful story of an old truck, ignored and worn out, down on her luck, living in a dark and dingy garage. No one pays attention to her. There are no other cars to talk to in the garage. Suddenly, a woman and a man, strangers to her, enter the garage and start looking at her with interest. She wonders what is happening and she tries to look and sound her best to impress them. Before she knows it she is loaded onto a tractor trailer and transported through cities and countrysides to a new home. Her new home is a nice clean garage, bright with lights, and a new friend, Eddie, a white convertible. The couple tinkers with her and transforms her into a beautiful and fun flower truck. She looks and feels like new….and she is given a name. Her name is now Rosie and she could not be happier! Adventures await including people enjoying her flowers, ventures along country roads, a parade with Hank the fire engine, and finding an old car named Dibo stuck in the mud! Rosie to the rescue! Rosie brings happiness to all those she meets. She loves making people happy, that makes her happy, too!

The story of Rosie is inspiring for children to learn that whatever they are going through, their lives can change and they can go from sadness to joy. Rosie is the happiest she has ever been and even better, she has friends to share her life with.

Author

JESSICA MALOY

Jessica Maloy grew up in Mingo Junction, Ohio, moving to Pennsylvania, where she still lives, when she was 10 years old. As a child she enjoyed playing with dolls like Barbies. She loves flowers, animals and all things DIY (Do It Yourself).

When Jessica was in her 30s she came to the realization that she was physically strong. She was encouraged to compete in Powerlifting and with hard work she became very successful in her competitions. In her 4 years of competing she earned 12 World Records, 6 National Records and 24 Pennsylvania State Records. One of the benefits of these competitions was that she could show by example, and also spread the word, that girls can be strong. She often heard people comment that she was “strong for a girl”, when “for a girl” was not necessary…both boys and girls can be strong. Jessica finds it very empowering to be a strong female. In her book she wanted Rosie to be strong and also feminine. 

During the summer of 2020 with COVID and quarantine, Jessica was inspired by the idea of building “a cute little greenhouse” in her backyard. She loves designing and decorating and her husband, Patrick, is very handy and loves carpentry. They had a lot of fun putting the greenhouse together. That was the start of her business Palmyra Greenhouse. She knew it was meant to be! While she loves growing flowers and designing floral arrangements, her favorite part of the business is delivering flowers to people. Seeing the smiles on people’s faces made her realize that she needed to get more flowers out to more people. A great way to get more flowers to more people was to create “Rosie”.  Patrick grew up in a family that loved antique cars and even helped his dad, Eddie, restore a 1964 ½ Ford Mustang when he was in middle school. So it wasn’t difficult to talk him into the Flower Truck idea, especially using an old Ford truck. Eddie and Dibo, the cars in this story, are named after their fathers, both of whom have passed away. Both fathers are created into their favorite antique cars for the story. In this book, Eddie was Ed’s nickname, Patrick’s father, and Dibo is the nickname for Jessica’s father, Gary. These special cars are friends of Rosie in this story.

Jessica and her husband, Patrick, have one son, Alex. They live in Palmyra, Pennsylvania and share their home with 2 dogs and a cat. www.rosieandfriendsbook.com