LAPLACE — Sydney Stewart wanted to write and publish her first book before she turned 11.

With the help of her mother and younger sister, 10-year-old Sydney made it happen, publishing “Beautiful, Wonderful, Marvelous Me!” She turns 11 in June.

With a goal of helping young girls struggling with self-confidence concerns, Sydney hopes readers enjoy the story about a little girl looking in the mirror and learning to accept her inner and outer beauty.

The inspiration for the book’s illustrations is Sydney’s 3-year-old sister, Victoria.

“I was talking to my mom one day, and we were looking at pictures of my sister looking in the mirror on her phone,” Sydney said. “We thought it would be a good idea to do a story about a little girl looking in the mirror and coming up with lots of good things to say about herself.”

Knowing her daughter loved writing, Letitia Stewart, Sydney’s mother, told her she didn’t have to wait until she was an adult to publish a book and pursue her dreams.

“I’m really excited and proud to have it published,” Sydney said. “It took so long. I never thought I would get it finished, but when I saw the final copy, I was really happy. I like writing because you get to let your imagination fly free and you can write about whatever you want.”

Writing “Beautiful, Wonderful, Marvelous Me!” took Sydney a few weeks, followed by a lengthy editing process.

“The proofing and editing took about a month,” she said. “The hardest part of the whole process was trying to make sure we finished everything on time and we got all of the errors and things corrected. Every time we got a new proof, there were lots of errors we had to fix.”

The young author said she enjoyed working with her mother on the self-published book, which is aimed at girls ages 3 to 5.

“Some kids, including me, struggle with self confidence because they think they need to be like everyone else,” she said. “They really don’t need to. They can be themselves and still be awesome and beautiful.”

Stewart said Sydney comes to her all the time with creative ideas, so she wasn’t too shocked when her daughter wanted to publish a book before she turned 11.

“She started a book club in the third grade,” Stewart said. “We held the book club for two summers, so when she came to me and told me she wanted to publish a book, the first thing that came to mind was that she had to finish a book first.”

Sydney has a computer, tablet and notebook full of unfinished stories and her mother told her if she could finish one, she would help her publish it.

“I thought this would be a good lesson for her on what it takes to be a writer and go through the process of publishing a book,” Stewart said. “I’m proud of Sydney. I was mostly proud of her during the editing process. Also in the way she knew how to structure a book with what pages should go next. She knew where the title page goes; I didn’t even know that.”

“Beautiful, Wonderful, Marvelous Me!” is available for purchase on Amazon.com, and Sydney and her mother are hoping to get the book on the shelves of bookstores and libraries.

“You’re used to seeing books in stores and libraries with other people’s names written on them,” Sydney said. “Sometimes I wonder what it would be like to see my name on one of those books.”

Sydney and her mother are working on a book series and hope to have it finished by fall.