Meghan Markle once wrote a children's book inspired by her estranged father Thomas Markle

• Meghan Markle wrote a book about her freckles as part of a school project.

• The book title, "A Face Without Freckles... Is a Night Without Stars," was a quote from her dad.

• Markle and her father haven't spoken since before her royal wedding.

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The Duchess of Sussex published her debut children's book, "The Bench," earlier this month.

The book, about the connection between a father and son as seen through a mother's eyes, became a New York Times Bestseller within a week of its release. But it wasn't the royal's first attempt at writing for children.

Meghan Markle wrote a children's book in eighth grade, inspired by her father, Thomas Markle.

She wrote the book, titled "A Face Without Freckles... Is a Night Without Stars" as part of a school project and subsequently copyrighted it in 1996, according to Carla Hayden, the 14th Librarian of Congress, who shared images of the book on Twitter on Tuesday.

An excerpt from the book reads: "Some people think freckles are strange, while I happen to disagree, because if I didn't have my freckles, then I would not truly be me!"

The book title appears to be quoted directly from Markle's father. Speaking in an interview with Allure Magazine in 2017, the duchess said: "To this day, my pet peeve is when my skin tone is changed and my freckles are airbrushed out of a photo shoot."

She added: "For all my freckle-faced friends out there, I will share with you something my dad told me when I was younger: 'A face without freckles is a night without stars.'"

Markle went on to guest edit the September 2019 issue of British Vogue, and insisted that the photographer Peter Lindbergh didn't edit out the freckles of the women featured on the cover.

The duchess hasn't spoken to her father since before her royal wedding to Prince Harry in 2018.

Thomas was originally meant to walk Markle down the aisle at the St George's Chapel ceremony, however, he said at the time that he had to undergo a heart procedure and would be unable to attend.

Markle wrote in court documents released in April 2020 that her father had refused to attend "as a result of him being so publicly shamed" by the press for staging paparazzi photos before the wedding.

Thomas gave an interview to "60 Minutes Australia" earlier this month, where he said the duchess and Harry are "ghosting their families completely."

"Now they're alone in a huge house they could probably accommodate 20 people in, and it's just the four of them. But I don't think they're going to have relatives over for a barbecue tomorrow, or next week, or next month," he said.

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