Nazeen Shah, a junior at Fordham College at Rose Hill, recently wrote a children’s book about a young tennis player named Aliha, who is newly diagnosed with type 1 diabetes. In many ways, this was an autobiographical story for Shah, a member of Fordham’s club tennis team who was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes when she was 8.

“I want to show how diabetes can teach you meaningful lessons that can be applied to sports, family, [and] friends,” said Shah, a general science and anthropology double major who aspires to become a pediatric endocrinologist.

Within its first week of publication this past February, the book reached #1 in Amazon’s New Releases in Children’s Books on Physical Disabilities, #1 in New Releases in Children’s Disease Books, #1 in New Releases in Children’s Nonfiction Health Books, #5 Best Sellers in Physical Disabilities, and #13 Best Sellers in Children’s Disease Books, said Shah.

Watch the video above to learn more about Shah’s new book, Shots at Life, and what it’s like for Shah to live with diabetes as a college student.

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Taylor is a visual storytelling strategist in Fordham University's marketing and communications department, where she documents University life through photography and video. Since joining Fordham in 2018, she has served as a writer, photographer, videographer, and social media manager, dividing her time between University Marketing and Communications and the Office of the President. She earned her bachelor's degree in journalism from Stony Brook University's School of Communication and Journalism and her master's degree in public media from Fordham University's Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. Her work has appeared on NPR, NBC New York, and amNewYork METRO.