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Few would have guessed that based on her popular "Chloe By Design" children's book series, in which Gelbwasser details a young girl's foray into the glamorous world of fashion.
The second book in the series, "Chloe By Design: Balancing Act," was published in September, and Gelbwasser said she had plenty of help with the fashion parts.
"The Chloe character was actually a collaboration between me and [my publisher] CapStone Publishing," Gelbwasser, 39, told the Daily Voice.
The publisher works with an illustrator who is also a fashion designer to figure out the fashion parts, she said. That leaves Gelbwasser, a former teacher, to do what she does best — connect with young readers.
"I do suppose my experience as a teacher has helped me connect with kids with the Chloe books," she said."I have a younger voice that comes through."
Gelbwasser writes the Chloe series under the alias "Margaret Gurevich" so as not to confuse her children's books with a series of young adult books that are based on much more serious topics.
Her first book, "Inconvienient," in 2010, tells the story of a Russian Jewish girl living in a town based on Fair Lawn and Glen Rock and dealing with her mother's alcoholism.
Her next book should be lighter, said Gelbwasser, who has already handed in her manuscript for the third installment of the Chloe series, due out in September 2016.
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