Author and nurse PeggyEllen Kleinleder didn't get the support she needed after she was abused as a child. She did what artists and writers often do when confronting hard experiences in their lives.

Kleinleder wrote a book.

"The Thursday Group: A Story and Information for Girls Healing from Sexual Abuse," released this month from NEARI Press, is the result of Kleinleder's 10-year long project writing about sexual abuse. Don't think Oprah-style confession, though. Written with Kimber Evensen, a counselor with experience helping abuse victims, "The Thursday Group" combines the fictional narrative of a 13-year-old girl with practical information. Nanwalek artist Nancy Radtke's often cheerful and sometimes sobering illustrations complement the text.

"Writing is one of those things that's really healing," Evensen said. "I really needed that."

"I wanted it to be different for a kid," Kleinleder said of her motive for writing "The Thursday Group."

At 6:30 p.m. Monday, the authors and artist do a book signing at the Homer Public Library. The new logo for the Child Advocacy Centers, a program of South Peninsula Haven House that offers a safe and nonintrusive setting for counseling sexual abuse victims. The book will be on sale for $25, with proceeds benefiting the Child Advocacy Centers and the Friends of the Homer Library.

The book tells the story of Abi, a girl living in a small town in Alaska called Bluff whose youth pastor gets her to pose for suggestive photographs. The police arrest the pastor for possession of child pornography. From the first interview with police to Abi's weekly therapy group, The Thursday Group of the book's title, the book follows her story.

"There are elements of her story that could be real," Kleinleder said.

"Part of what we wanted to do with this story was make it real," Evensen added. "We wanted something that would be gentle and healing -- but real. There's hard stuff in it."

The authors chose a scenario that wouldn't be too hard, though. It's also not specifically spelled out. The focus isn't so much on the act of abuse as it is on Abi's healing. By choosing a situation that's not as graphic, the authors also wanted to increase awareness about sexual abuse. Sexual abuse is a continuum of acts, from seemingly innocent things like getting a girl to put on a pretty dress and pose for the camera to brutal, disgusting crimes. Abusers often groom their victims for worse things, starting with something that might not seem wrong at first.

Abuse also is more common than some realize, with one in three-to-four girls and one in four-to-six boys experiencing some kind of sexual abuse, Kleinleder and Evensen said.

Sexual abuse happens when an older person -- or even a child about the same age as the victim -- tries to get some sort of sexual response and some sort of gratification from the act, said Peg Coleman, director of South Peninsula Haven House.

"There's a huge power differential in the relationship," Coleman said. "It's exploitation."

"There are different types of abusers," Evensen said.

Some handbooks and pamphlets focus on more obvious types of abuse.

"That's hard for victims sometimes," Kleinleder said. "It's hard for them to find what happened to them in the literature. Their situation is going to be unique."

While "The Thursday Group" is written specifically for girls healing from sexual abuse, Kleinleder and Evensen write for a wider audience. The book is for the families of abuse victims, anybody working with sexual abuse and anybody who cares about victims, Kleinleder said. They acknowledge that boys can be victims, too, and women can be perpetrators.

Boys often don't acknowledge being abused, Evensen noted. They are taught to be protectors and not victims.

"Society's less likely to see boys as victims," she said. "Boys are less likely to see themselves as victims."

Told as a first-person narrative, Abi even writes the book's introduction. She advises readers to put the book down if they feel uncomfortable.

"It's easy to disassociate when you're reading a story," Kleinleder said. "We thought it would be more healing if people could take it in chunks."

When dealing with such a hard subject, readers need to be cautioned to have someone they can talk to if the story starts making them feel weird.

"For anybody who wants to pick this up off the bookshelf, we want to have that in there," Evensen said.

NEARI Press, the publication arm of the New England Adolescent Research Institute, Holyoke, Mass., came to publish "The Thursday Group" through a colleague Evensen knew who had done work with NEARI.

"Their philosophy fit ours. It's not about making money. It's about getting the word out," Evensen said.

Coleman praised "The Thursday Group" for its positive approach.

"I think it's a great collaboration," she said. "When somebody suffers abuse like this, it's such an isolating experience. Here are other people's stories, here are other people coming together in strength."

Michael Armstrong can be reached at michael.armstrong@homernews.com.