SNELLVILLE -- Piffels is, as elves go, not all that remarkable in appearance, David Babulski said.
But the character the Snellville resident has created has a big heart and a story to share.
"Adventures of Piffels the Elf: A Fairy Tale for Our Times" is the first in a three-book series Babulski has penned. The second book, "Battle for the Elfin Realms," was published earlier this year and will be followed by a third book now in the works.
Babulski's stories explore the history of the relationship between elves and humans and the effects Piffels' personal interactions with a small child named Esmerelda have on his young life.
He began considering the idea of writing a book for pre-teens in 1990 after completing the Institute for Children's Literature's course in writing for children and teenagers. With an interest in the lore of elves, fairies and other mystical creatures, he began investigating their origins.
"What I found is that every human culture, even some aboriginal cultures, have myths, stories and legends of tiny human-like beings that share the world with humankind, but also live apart," he said.
"These creatures are known by many names depending on the humankind culture. I also examined the children's stories about elves and fairies. The classical fairy tales allow the reader to use their own imagination to build an ongoing movie in their mind."
Moving from the classic tales to more contemporary stories within this particular genre of literature, Babulski found they read more like video games presented through words.
"A lot of magic, special powers, spells and such seem to be the hallmarks of such literature," he said. "It seemed to me that a lot of the imagination had been taken away from the reader. I sat down one evening and asked myself, 'What if there really are tiny, sentient mammalian biped-like creatures that inhabit a world parallel to our own and what if some of those creatures are winged and have the ability to fly? What that world look like?' Then I asked myself, 'How would such a world have come about and what would happen if that world were to interact with our own in the present day?' From these thoughts the idea for a story about an unlikely little elf named Piffels was born."
In "Battle for the Elfin Realms," reuniting elves and humans has become a possibility, thanks to Piffels' courage, as detailed in book one, but before the long-held rift can be addressed other forces must be thwarted.
The third book, currently in development, will pick up where the second leaves off.
"It is my hope that readers of 'The Adventures of Piffels the Elf' will take away a sense of the true meaning of the abstract ideas of love, friendship, faith, loyalty and courage, and how these ideas can transcend the differences between cultures, politics and even the divide between different worlds," Babulski said. "I hope that readers of all ages, upon experiencing 'The Adventures of Piffels the Elf,' will reflect on and take away their own interpretation of these fundamental ideas of life."
For Babulski, who grew up surrounded by books, sitting at his mother's knee listening to stories of faraway placed and enchanted worlds she created, publishing his own stories has fulfilled a promise he made to himself.
"I promised myself that some day I would write and have such books published," he said. "Being able to have my books published is the realization of that dream; a dream that goes on with several more writing projects under way."