Danielle Romano of Brodheadsville, might be only 18 years old but she has accomplished something that may take others years to do, and for still others, never at all.

Danielle's first book has been published and nationally released. It is a children's book titled, "Billy's First Haircut.""It is so exciting that I wrote something someone wanted to publish," she says.She got the idea for the story from watching her younger brothers' haircut experiences. She has five brothers and a sister.In the story, a little boy is very frightened of his first trip to the barber shop where he meets a stranger with a scissors. Young readers will discover the truth with Billy about barber shops, the man with scissors and learn about the strength inside themselves.She wrote the book in September 2009 at the age of 17. Her uncle, Eric Romano of New York, did the illustrations for the story. In October she sent it to Tate Publishing and Enterprises. They sent her a contract in December. It was released Jan. 24, 2010."It's all very exciting."Danielle has been writing for as long as she can remember."I was home-schooled and loved to write for fun. I wrote lots of little stories and my mom graded them," she says.When she was about 10 years old, the family's computer developed a virus and somehow her stories got sent out to all the people in their email history and she started to get feedback on the stories."It was interesting to hear what other people said about them. It encouraged me to keep writing," she says.That's just what she is doing. She is currently working on three other children's stories.The daughter of Kevin and Karen Romano, Danielle recently moved to Baltimore, Maryland when a friend invited Danielle to join her as her roommate. She is working as a personal assistant/job coach for a disabled girl who works for the Towson University day care. She hopes to take some classes at Towson and plans to pursue her writing career along with organic farming with one of her brothers. Danielle also loves to run and bike.If you would like to meet Danielle, she will be at Barnes & Noble Book Store in Whitehall on Saturday, April 24 for a book signing and reading of "Billy's First Haircut." The book can be ordered on the websites of Barnes & Noble, Amazon and Borders.