At 12 years old, Ever Daniells is the published author and illustrator of “Quillbur and the Lemonade Stand Mayhem,” he’s a Park City Farmer’s Market vendor, and he’s a burn survivor.
At 1, Ever reached up and pulled a pot of boiling soup off the stove, and it poured down his body.
“It actually burned my face, burned my arm, burned my legs,” he said, though he doesn’t remember the incident. “It’s just a total miracle, no scar here, no scar there.” He touched his face, his thigh. “The only scar was my arm.”
His mom, Mera Daniells, was about to go into labor with his sister, Bexlie, and packing her bags for the hospital when the accident happened. They rushed to a different hospital instead.
“When some percentage of your body is burned, your body can’t monitor your temperature. Because (the skin) is the largest organ, it keeps your body at the right temperature so you don’t burn up with a fever,” she said.
Burns over 30% of the total body surface can be fatal, according to the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services.
“He burned exactly that amount, so the doctor was like, ‘He may not survive this,’” Mera said.
For two days, a nurse was constantly in his room checking Ever’s pulse, and for the two weeks he was in the hospital, unborn Bexlie stayed in her mom’s belly. She was born the day after Ever returned home.
“Every day I would tell her, ‘Not today Bexlie, please hang in there.’ I was in one hospital with one kid. I can’t be in a separate hospital an hour away with a newborn,’” Mera remembered.
Ever recovered, life carried on, and only the one scar remained.
“Ninety percent of the time, I just forget about it,” he said. “It doesn’t really affect any movements of my body. … It causes me no pain.”
Sitting at his small market booth selling copies of “Quillbur and the Lemonade Stand Mayhem,” his debut comic book, Daniells has the nonchalant confidence of a seasoned creative — which he is. He’s always loved art.
The family has a picture of young Daniells in the burn ICU, wrapped head to toe in white bandages, drawing with a paper and pencil, his mom said.
“Then and now, it’s always been his outlet,” she said, both art and storytelling.
He used to tell stories about his burn scar, Mera said.
“‘I dived into the oceans and tried to save my sister from an alligator, and then it bit my arm’” Ever said with a grin, a clearly rehearsed tale.
He loves telling stories that make people laugh.
“Probably my favorite reaction to get from somebody is laughter. It just makes me feel good that I get to see somebody laughing because of what I did,” he said.
So when deciding to write a book, and eventually make it a series, he knew he wanted it to be funny. So each story is based around a prank.
“It’s basically about a nerdy porcupine and his friend who is a skunk,” he said. “In this book, they’re trying to figure out who sabotaged the lemonade by replacing the sugar with salt. … Nobody likes salty lemonade.”
He’s got about 10 prank ideas for 10 books. Coming up with the pranks was the easy part, he said. Deciding on his main character wasn’t so simple.
“If you’re going to make a comic book, you have to make the first thing — which in my opinion is the hardest to do — the main character. The main character is the one thing you have to start off with. It took me so long,” he said.
His mom helped, suggesting a unique animal like a porcupine — and Quillbur was born. And a sidekick? The skunk character was sister Bexlie’s idea, and became Stinker.
Together, mom and son created a plan for each scene, Ever drew each comic tile by hand, and Mera scanned them into procreate to digitize and color them.
The whole process took about a year. They published through Amazon.
Ever decided he wanted to give a portion of his proceeds back to other burn survivors and a place that had become special for him: the University of Utah Health’s burn camp, Camp Nah Nah Mah, in Tooele.
“Burn camp is just such a good place,” Ever beamed, having just returned that morning from his second year attending the five-day, four-night event.
The camp is designed to introduce “children to the burn survivor world,” their website says. “Kids will meet, talk, play, and live with other survivors their age, fully supported by our experienced counseling staff.”
There’s arts-and-crafts, jumping from a high swing, a rock wall, scuba diving for underwater games of “Go Fish,” Ever said. Much of the funding comes from firefighters wanting to help kids like him, and every meal is cooked by volunteer firefighters, he said.
“The reason why I wanted to give it to burn camp is because I’m a burn survivor,” he said, gesturing to the puckered, pink skin on the inside of his left arm. “They really help us burn survivors and that’s why I want to give back by donating some books. … It just makes me feel so excited that I’m giving back so much stuff to burn camp because they gave me so much stuff, too.”
And it wasn’t just part of his proceeds that he gave, his mom said. He gave all the proceeds.
“We make about $1 per book because it costs so much to get them printed,” she said. “We sold about 100 books and just donated $100, in the form of books. They are going to give them to the burn survivors in the ICU there.”
“Quillbur and the Lemonade Stand Mayhem” is also available at the camp’s Burn Buck Shop, a store where kids can spend “burn bucks” earned for nice behavior, Ever said.
Wednesday was their last day at the farmer’s market because they were out of books, and school will start again soon. They said they enjoyed being there, grateful to Volker Mera, who let Ever sell at the market for free. Their record sales day was 30 books, and they met a few burn survivors while at the market, too.
“It just makes me feel so good to see other people who are just like me,” Ever said.
On Amazon, the book has over 100 five-star reviews.
“Ninety-nine percent of them would be like, inspired something,” Ever said. “‘My kid was just inspired,’ ‘I’m a teacher, I brought it to my class and it inspired all my kids.’ ‘I am just an old person and I gave it to my kid and they were just like, “Wow, a kid wrote this?”’ So, I just love how it’s inspired so many other kids.”
Book two is almost done, hopefully a month out, he said. It’s called “Quillbur and the Camp Catastrophe.” Sneak peeks of that story can be seen at his website, quillbur.com.
Ever will be doing a book signing at Dolly’s Bookstore on Sunday, from noon-3 p.m., and he’s been practicing his signature.
Their family is here to stay, Mera said. They’d watched the Park City market for two years before buying their home in 2018, a stroke of luck, she said.
“It’s our forever home and we will pass it down to our kids. We absolutely love living here,” she said.
Sign up for the Quillbur newsletter on the website for updates on Ever’s upcoming books, and copies of “Quillbur and the Lemonade Stand Mayhem” can be purchased on Amazon, at Dolly’s Bookstore and JW Allen & Sons Toys and Candy in Kimball Junction.