Blog Archives
My (2D Shape) Family
My 2D Shape Family, by Lisa M. Weckbacher, turns an introductory geometry lesson into a friendly family gathering. Circle serves as the narrator, welcoming readers and introducing relatives that range from Oval and Triangle to less familiar figures such as Heptagon, Nonagon, and Decagon. The family idea gives this children’s book a warm structure while reinforcing its central message: shapes can share important qualities and still look quite different from one another.
The book builds understanding through familiar objects, thoughtful comparisons, and plenty of direct questions. Children identify shapes in a button, pizza slice, checkerboard, soccer ball, and honeycomb before meeting the corresponding character. They’re also invited to trace Circle, measure width, count sides, and consider why some shapes look different when turned or tilted. These prompts make the picture book especially well suited to reading aloud, since an adult can pause for predictions, counting, and conversation.
Katrina Snyder’s illustrations give each shape its own lively personality. The characters have expressive faces, thin arms and legs, and little visual details that help distinguish them without distracting from their geometry. Bright colors, generous white space, and clearly drawn everyday objects keep the pages easy to follow. The illustrations are particularly effective when shapes are rotated, stretched, or placed beside similar family members, allowing readers to see the differences the text is describing.
There’s an impressive amount of material here, from the meaning of two-dimensional to length, width, curves, sides, points, and orientation. Even the nine-sided and ten-sided shapes receive memorable introductions, giving children vocabulary they may not encounter in many early shape books. The closing reference pages gather the whole family in one place, making it easy to review what readers have learned. With its chatty narrator and hands-on questions, My 2D Shape Family offers a playful, substantial introduction to recognizing and comparing geometric shapes.
Pages: 38 | ASIN : B0H9VR4LBM
One Inch at a Time
One Inch at a Time, by Alyssa Herrera, is a tender children’s book about developmental progress, disability, and the many ways children communicate, move, and grow. Built around the idea of “inchstones,” it treats a wiggle, blink, sign, step, or brave attempt as an occasion worth noticing. The opening contrast between a caped child taking off and a baby taking their time quickly establishes the book’s generous outlook: each child follows an individual path, and each bit of progress carries meaning.
Herrera’s short, rhyming lines make this picture book easy to share aloud. The repeated “some kids” phrasing creates a reassuring rhythm while introducing speech, gestures, communication aids, mobility equipment, and physical support in language young readers can understand. Phrases such as “almosts,” “not yets,” and “nearlys” give families an encouraging vocabulary for the long stretches between milestones. The text gradually expands from individual achievements to a wider invitation for patience, kindness, and inclusion.
Mayssa Kennouche’s bright, softly textured illustrations carry much of the emotional storytelling. Children appear using wheelchairs, braces, orthotics, medical tubing, signs, sounds, and other forms of communication, surrounded by attentive families, classmates, teachers, and friends. Mobility aids and medical equipment are presented as familiar parts of everyday life. Spacious character vignettes focus attention on small actions, while fuller scenes at the playground, pool, track, classroom, and birthday table show the joy of belonging to a community. The varied faces, bodies, cultures, and abilities give the book’s message real visual substance.
One Inch at a Time offers a cheerful and practical way to talk with children about growth that happens at different speeds and in different forms. Its final pages bring everyone together in celebration, then close with a personal note from the parents of Mack and Mila, grounding the idea of inchstones in lived family experience. Parents, teachers, therapists, and caregivers will find plenty here to begin conversations, but children receive the most important message directly: their efforts matter, their way of growing belongs, and even the tiniest win deserves a cheer.
“why do my teeth fall out?”
Lily and the Tooth Fairy follows a little girl who loses her first tooth at the beach, and a beloved family story sends her dreaming into fairyland and wondering what surprises the tooth fairy might leave behind. Why did you choose to begin Lily’s adventure with a family beach day?
Children most often ask, “why do my teeth fall out?” I can’t answer in one or two ways:
“To make room for the adult teeth to accommodate the expansion of the jaw bone.”
or use kid-friendly terminology
“You’ll get bigger teeth as you get bigger, in order to eat bigger meals.”
Papa shares a tooth fairy story that was told to him when he was young. What role do you think family traditions and storytelling can play in helping children understand new experiences?
Yes. More dental milestones are in the works. But because all children experience milestones, I will be introducing a new character by the name of Maya, in my next book, “Teeth like me.”
Author Links: Amazon | GoodReads
When Lily and Papa return home from their outing, Papa shares a tooth fairy tale with Lily that was once told to him when he was a boy. That night, she dreams of being a fairy who lives in fairyland, making gold coins. The dream is so real in makes her wonder: Do fairies truly have magical powers? Will she find something special in place of her tooth when she wakes from her slumber?
A Very Human Question
Bella Santini in the Land of Everlasting Change follows a fourteen-year-old girl who enters a magical fairy realm and discovers that her mysterious connection to its magic may reveal a hidden truth about her identity. What was the inspiration for the setup of your story?
Bella Santini was born from my own experience of feeling different as a child. I was highly sensitive and deeply aware of the emotions around me, but I did not always understand what I was sensing or where I belonged. I wanted to create a character who carried some of that same uncertainty.
Fantasy gave me a beautiful way to explore those feelings. Bella begins the story believing she knows who she is and what her world is, even though she has never felt completely at home in it. Then she enters a place where everything she understands about herself begins to shift. The magic is part of the adventure, but underneath it is a very human question: What happens when you discover that the things that made you feel different might actually be part of who you are?
That became the heart of the Land of Everlasting Change. Bella is entering a magical world, but she is also entering a deeper understanding of herself.
Bella enters the fairy realm almost by accident. What did you want her unexpected journey to represent?
Life rarely announces the experiences that are going to change us. We can be moving through an ordinary day and suddenly find ourselves somewhere we never expected to be, emotionally or literally. Bella does not choose a grand quest. She falls into one.
I wanted that unexpected journey to reflect the experience of growing up, particularly during the tween and early teen years. The world begins changing around you, relationships change, your awareness of yourself changes, and suddenly the rules that once made sense do not seem quite as certain.
The Land of Everlasting Change makes that experience visible. Bella cannot control everything that happens around her, but she can learn to understand what she feels, make choices about how she responds, and discover what those choices reveal about her. For me, that is where courage begins.
Yelimoon Fairy School adds a magical-school element to the story. What was most exciting about creating the school and its magical curriculum?
Yelimoon was tremendous fun to create because it grew out of a real place that captured my imagination. I lived in Cheltenham, England, and often admired the beautiful buildings of Cheltenham College. Their historic architecture became the visual inspiration for Yelimoon Fairy School. I loved taking something that existed in the real world and imagining what might be happening behind those walls if they belonged to a school for fairies.
From there, I could let my imagination run free. I created magical classes, unusual teachers, creatures, friendships, mistakes, and all the delightful complications that happen when young people are learning abilities they do not yet know how to control. What interested me most, though, was that Bella could not simply master a spell and suddenly master herself. She has to experiment, make mistakes, become frustrated, try again, and learn whom she can trust. Yelimoon teaches magic, but the experiences Bella has there teach her about herself. That is one of the things I love about writing fantasy for young readers. You can give a child an extraordinary world while still speaking to something very real in their life.
What can readers expect from Bella’s continuing adventures in the Land of Everlasting Change?
Bella’s world continues to grow, and so do the challenges she faces. Each adventure explores another layer of growing up through fantasy, friendship, difficult choices, misunderstandings, consequences, and, of course, magic.
In Troll War, Bella begins discovering that understanding another person requires looking beyond what we have been told about them. In Princess Bella Visits the Dragon’s Lair, her choices become increasingly important, and she learns that even well-intentioned decisions can have consequences. As the series continues, the world expands further, and Bella’s understanding of herself becomes more complex.
There are larger mysteries unfolding as well, including questions about Bella’s connection to this world and where she truly belongs. I want readers to have the pleasure of following an ongoing fantasy adventure while growing alongside Bella. She does not become fearless or suddenly have everything figured out. She becomes more capable of listening to herself, understanding others, making choices, and meeting change when it arrives. That, to me, is a much more interesting kind of magic.
Author Links: GoodReads | Amazon
When Bella follows a trail of glowing lights into the woods, she’s suddenly swept into the Land of Everlasting Change, a magical realm where nothing stays the same for long and courage is tested in unexpected ways. Taken to a mysterious fairy school, Bella must face a series of magical trials that challenge not just her abilities but also her confidence, her choices, and her belief in herself.
As Bella navigates strange rules, powerful fairies, and friendships that test her heart, she begins to discover that real strength isn’t about being fearless, it’s about learning how to stand steady when things feel uncertain.
Bella Santini in the Land of Everlasting Change is the first book in a heartfelt middle-grade fantasy series about resilience, identity, and finding courage from within. It’s a story for sensitive readers, children who have felt out of place, and anyone learning how to trust themselves in a world that keeps changing.
Perfect for middle-grade readers who love magical worlds, brave heroines, and emotionally meaningful adventures.
Permission to Be Kids Again
What’s for Dinner? follows a young boy and his friends as a simple misunderstanding about his dad’s dinner sparks a hilarious series of increasingly outrageous guesses about what they’ll be eating. What draws you to write children’s literature?
I think children’s literature gives us adults permission to be kids again, which is something we all need, in my opinion. As adults, we have long lost the innocent view of the world; children display it every day. I love writing for children because their imaginations have no speed limit or has no boundaries, they ask questions we adults stop asking ourselves as we get wrapped up in life. The way children can take an ordinary cardboard box and create a spaceship or castle from their imagination, or create a superhero cape from a blanket, is something we aduts can learn from. Children take a simple question, such as “What’s For Dinner?”, add a little imagination, a lot of silliness, and absolutely love the journey it leads them on.
Honestly, if I can write a story that makes a child laugh, help make family memories…I consider that a successful day.
How did the idea for Mac, Howard, and Caitie’s hilarious misunderstanding of “Nun-Ya” come about?
So the characters are actually based off my wife (Caitie), one of my closest friends from my military days (Howard); even Obie is based off of a real dog (my wife’s service animal, Oberon), and of course myself as Mac and Dad. It all started with one of those classic dad answers to “What’s For Dinner?” we all received as children ourselves. Once I started the process, I asked my own children what they thought it was, as we said the same answer to them when they were younger for some ideas of gross foods. Of course we know now as adults that it should have meant “None of your business,” but as children we all took it as an actual meal, and once a child’s imagination gets involved, there’s no way to put the brakes on a wild imagination. I wanted to capture that wonderful childhood ability to take one tiny misunderstanding and turn it into a full-blown investigation.
As a father, I’ve learned that if you give children a question, they will give you a pure and honest answer. However, if you give them a mysterious answer to their questions, they will provide approximately 100 answers, with about 25 of those answers being absolutely wild.
The illustrations add visual jokes and exaggerated reactions to the story. How did you collaborate with Emily Close and Jennifer A. Wijaya to bring the humor to life?
I absolutely loved working with Emily and Jennifer. All the character designs are my own, and I handed them the sketches in the beginning of the process, as I simply didn’t have the time to render or learn a new program while working full time as a father of four and, of course, actually work. Emily and Jennifer took these sketches and layouts and took the humor within my story and tuned it way up in the best possible way!
One of my favorite parts of creating the final version was seeing my characters come to life through each edit and through their expressions on the pages. Watching children read our book and make similar facial expressions is exactly the response we all were looking for by the end of the project. A funny line in a manuscript can make you smile, but seeing my characters’ faces when they are illustrated can make it even more ridiculous and take that joke to the next level.
I basically wrote the joke and gave these very talented artists the opportunity to expand that joke to hilarious new levels…and I am looking forward to working with them on future projects!
Do you think the story might inspire children to invent their own ridiculous answers to “What’s for dinner?”
I truly hope it does, and if it does, I apologize in advance to their parents! LOL. I hope kids start playing their own versions of “What’s For Dinner?” around their dinner tables. The possibilities are endless with children and their imaginations; one might create spaghetti with marshmallows, another might create stink bug stew for their Nun-Ya meals. That’s exactly what I love about this book, as I wanted children to realize that they can take a simple question and turn it into an imaginative adventure. Hopefully, after reading What’s For Dinner? children decide to put their art skills to work and create gross food of their own, and parents send me the images.
Author Links: GoodReads | Facebook | Amazon
Oliver’s Garden
Oliver’s Garden, written by Evelyn A. Fisher and illustrated by Declan T. Fisher, is a gentle picture book inspired by a real dog’s adventures in the garden. Oliver, an enthusiastic white pup, explores a Northern California garden through the seasons, searching for favorite snacks such as asparagus, strawberries, cucumbers, raspberries, and apples. His excitement makes the garden feel like a place of discovery, comfort, and belonging.
The story’s language is simple and inviting, with repeated actions that young children can easily follow. Oliver waits, sniffs, searches, and gently gathers each treat, giving the book a calm rhythm that suits reading aloud. The descriptions also introduce children to seasonal changes and show where familiar fruits and vegetables grow. There’s a nice balance between Oliver’s playful appetite and his patient, careful behavior.
Declan T. Fisher’s illustrations give the book its warm, handmade character. Soft washes of green, blue, yellow, and red create a garden that changes naturally from spring’s first shoots to winter’s darker sky. Oliver’s rounded shape, curious expressions, and energetic poses keep him appealing on every page. The wide garden scenes encourage readers to look around, while closer images of asparagus, berries, cucumbers, and apples make each snack feel like a small prize.
Oliver’s Garden celebrates the everyday pleasure of spending time outdoors with an animal companion. Its seasonal structure gives the book a satisfying journey, ending with Oliver resting by the fire and dreaming of spring. Young gardeners, dog lovers, and families interested in nature will find plenty to talk about together, from how plants grow to the way a familiar place can feel special because of the memories made there.
Pages: 26 | ASIN : B0HF6N2M5K
