As a student, Sara developed a love of lettering that led to her working on an idea that an alphabet could be created from just 11 components. (She would revisit this idea some decades later with the aid of Paul Hanson of Workman Publishing. He saw her drawings of little figures hauling shapes to build letters, and helped to create a kit to help children understand how the alphabet is formed. The result was published, in 2008, as How to Build an A.)