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 2018 graduate of the Stony Brook University School of Communication and Journalism, where she was valedictorian of her class and garnered several awards for her reporting and writing. Now she is a senior staff writer and videographer in Fordham University's news and media relations bureau, where she writes stories; shoots photos of people and events; and films, edits, and produces short-form videos. She earned her master's degree in public media from Fordham in August 2020. Her work has appeared on NPR, NBC New York, and amNewYork METRO.