Maggie Elwell, 10, sat at the front of Percy’s Burrow in the Auburn Mall under pink, blue and green balloons; her hair done in pigtails, and a slight smile on her face.

“Would you like to look at my book?” Elwell offered to a passer-by. The woman stopped and looked through “My Mom, the Coconut Machine.”

Elwell wrote the book when she was just 9-years-old.

“My Mom, the Coconut Machine” began as a writing assignment by Elwell’s third-grade teacher at Park Avenue Elementary School. Her task was to write a story featuring herself.

From there, her imagination went wild, and “My Mom, the Coconut Machine” was born.

The story features Maggie, a young girl who dreams her mother is a vending machine-like robot that goes haywire.

Doing all the illustrations herself, Elwell’s story came to life with bright, colorful pictures.

She showed the story to her family, who encouraged her to publish it.

“By doing this, we’re trying to show Maggie that education is important,” said Claudia Elwell, her mother.

And, since Spanish is the family’s first language, they decided to translate the book into Spanish as well.

But finding a publisher was not very easy. They shopped around and finally settled on AuthorHouse, a self-publishing company located in Indiana.

The company offered her printed copies and an ISBN number, important for selling the book.

Elwell’s book is available for purchase at authorhouse.com, amazon.com and Percy’s Burrow in the Auburn Mall. The cost of the book is between $10 and $12. All of the proceeds will go to Elwell’s college fund.

And what will Elwell study in college? That answer is complicated.

“I like to write and draw a lot at home,” she said. “I’d like to become a writer, a fashion designer or a police officer. But mostly a fashion designer.”

Maggie Elwell, 10, right, talks with Heidi Campbell and her daughter, Ashley, about her book, “My Mom the Coconut Machine,” during a book signing at Percy’s Burrow in the Auburn Mall. Elwell wrote the book while in third grade at Park Avenue Elementary School in Auburn.