Nov. 2 -- ROCK FALLS -- Matthew Sutherland never planned to become an author and illustrator; he just wanted better bedtime stories to read to his daughter.

"I would read these children's books to my daughter, and some were just terrible," Sutherland said. "Some are very good, but it blew me away that we're spending money on books and things that kind of stunk. So, I started making up my own stories, and my daughter enjoyed them. One day, I got the idea of just writing her a book and decided I was going to try this."

Sutherland self-published his first book, "Rusty and Rita: Bus Friends Forever," in November 2019. He released three more books the following year. His newest book is titled "One Star Can Make a Difference."

"It took a lot of research to learn how to self-publish," Sutherland said. "There's a lot of resources online, but if you don't know where to search, you'll quickly go down some rabbit holes. I ended up following the steps to create my own little publishing company for my first book."

Writing has always come easily to Sutherland, who said the hard part is creating the illustrations.

"I've always been into drawing," Sutherland said. "When I was young, I used to get comic books all the time, and I would draw Spider-Man and Batman and Wolverine. In grade school, I thought I would grow up to be a cartoonist or something. But that changed as I got older."

Sutherland is a Rock Falls native and a safety manager for the First Student Inc. bus company. He also drove a school bus for First Student for seven years as a way to spend more time with his daughter.

"When she was about a year and a half old, I started looking for something that would give me more time with her," Sutherland said. "I figured anything having to do with the school would be perfect. We'd have the same holidays and summers off together. I loved driving my bus. I had the best kids on my route, and I always drove around with a smile because it never felt like I was at work."

Despite having less time to write with the arrival of his second child, Sutherland is still smiling and hopes to pencil in time in the future to write more books.

"This last one I wrote was harder than all of the others just because of the time constraints," Sutherland said. "But, you know, that just made me try that much harder because I wanted to overcome the challenges. I just want to spread some good vibes out in the world."