Godly girls

Anyone who meets Kayla Malizzi of Cape Girardeau knows instantly she's not your average 11-year-old.

Not many girls her age publish their own magazine.

Kayla started "Godly Girls" after reading in "American Girl" magazine about a girl who started a magazine for her Jewish friends.

"You know how you get good ideas, and after thinking about them for a while you think they're not such a good idea any more?" Kayla said. "It didn't stop. I always thought it was a good idea. Mom told me God wanted me to do it."

Kayla, daughter of John and Lisa Malizzi, is homeschooled. "Godly Girls" isn't part of her curriculum, but publishing the magazine has taught her a lot about planning, the costs of publication, writing and editing. Her computer skills have surpassed her mother's; she even modified the program her dad set up for her to design the magazine.

"I learned how to use my time wisely," she said. "It takes so long to make each [issue]."

Kayla is currently preparing her third quarterly issue. The first premiered with the summer, and the second in the fall encompassed Thanksgiving and Christmas. The spring issue will be the first to have a theme: "Love the way you are, or love the way God made you, something like that," Kayla said.

The cover of an issue of "Godly Girls" magazine

Each issue is targeted toward girls from kindergarten to teens, and is packed with information: cooking, crafts, Scripture and an interview Kayla does in a question-and-answer format with a person who has inspired her in some way. Her grandmother, Clara Looney contributes a column, "Ask Grandma," and her sisters and brother contribute in various ways.

Kayla herself strives to be a godly girl, and the magazine is the vehicle Kayla wants to use to bring other young girls closer to God.

"I learned to trust and depend on God more," she said. "He is really what made me start this. I had to do more research in the Bible. I learned more about him, not exactly as a person but for what he is and what he does."

So far, she has a readership of about 25. Most of the readers are family and friends.

The cover of an issue of "Godly Girls" magazine

She doesn't sell subscriptions -- yet -- because that would mean having to figure up publishing costs and setting a price. Although as more and more people read the magazine, she knows she'll have to do that.

She would like to put "Godly Girls" in the library at St. Vincent de Paul, where the family attends church, but is a little hesitant about asking if she can. For all she's learned, her mother says, that kind of confidence hasn't come yet.

But "Godly Girls" has influenced Kayla, Lisa Malizzi said. She and her husband have so far financed the publication. They waited to investigate home publishing until they could see how seriously Kayla took to the project.

"By the second issue we could see she was going to stay with it," Lisa said. "She has learned about being consistent and following through. She's been good at following through."

"I'm not a disciplined person," Kayla interjected. "There were a few days I didn't want to sit down at the computer and type."

Kayla has planned a year's worth of issues on her own day planner and uses a portfolio her father gave her to keep track of assignments and future copy. Her friends contribute items she assigns, and she has told her siblings that even though they live together in the same house, they "have deadlines, too."

"I'm trying to be more organized," she said. "The best thing I have learned is organization. It's hard to get something like this without organization."

Kayla is articulate beyond her years, well-mannered, sincere and obviously enjoys learning. Lisa said she pulled Kayla out of St. Vincent's school in the second grade because Kayla was bored and needed more challenges. It's hard to say at what level she is learning -- Lisa says high in some areas, and lower in others -- but since publishing "Godly Girls," Kayla's writing skills and vocabulary have skyrocketed. Lisa homeschools all of her children now.

"There are so many different ways to learn," Lisa said. "I wanted to give them a love of learning, to be godly kids and follow their hearts on what to do."

Kayla may be getting experience in publishing, but it isn't what she wants to do. She wants to be a neonatologist. The family takes in foster children with medical problems, and Lisa said Kayla has taken naturally to inserting feeding tubes and catheters as well as caring for the little ones, like she's a natural-born pediatrician-to-be.

And a natural-born publisher. Who's to say she won't do both if she so decides? After all, she's a godly girl.

lredeffer@semissourian.com

335-6611, extension 160