Lilah Loves Life follows a young girl through a typical day where she enjoys life and does a variety of fun activities. What was the inspiration for the setup of your story?

My inspiration was my 3-year-old granddaughter, Lilah. Ever since she was a baby she almost always had a smile on her face, and when she learned to talk she enjoyed saying hi to her friends and neighbors, and even to complete strangers. As she got older and went to pre-school she quickly made friends and got involved in numerous activities. It just made me realize that she’s a child who loves to embrace the moment and get maximum enjoyment out of everyday things that kids do.

The art in the book is wonderful. What was the art collaboration process like with illustrator Laura Watson?

Laura is just so great to work with. She also did the illustrations for my first book, Beau Wants to Know, which was inspired by Lilah’s older brother, Beau. For that book we had to create a character from scratch, with me giving her some general guidelines of how I saw the character. She took those guidelines and came up with about a half-dozen prototypes that we continued to tweak until we had the character that I had imagined. Fortunately, creating the Lilah character was quite a bit simpler because we had already done all the heavy lifting with Beau. We used the same basic character design because we knew we needed them to have a family resemblance, so Laura created several female prototypes with different clothing and we whittled them down to the final Lilah character. As far as her illustrations in general, I would give her a scenario for each spread, along with one or two elements that I felt were necessary to include. From there, Laura would create these wonderful, whimsical scenes that always included bright colors and extra touches, such as insects in the garden, a rabbit hopping in the background, different plants and flowers popping up all over, etc. All of those extra touches make the illustrations come alive and make the story more enjoyable. I can only hope that Laura will be the illustrator for any future projects that I undertake.

What were some ideas that were important for you to share in this book?

I had several ideas that I wanted to share. First and foremost, I think, was that it is very good for our spiritual and mental health to be able to find joy in life, even in the little things. My granddaughter is able to do that, and that made a big impression on me early on in her development. So I wanted the Lilah character to be able to look forward to all the ways she might find to enjoy her day. Another idea I wanted to share is that it’s never too early to think about what inspires you and makes you happy, and what you might like to do with your life. Lilah in the book dreams of being a chef, a baseball player and a ballerina while she’s doing various things throughout her day. I think it’s healthy for kids to have dreams about what their lives might be like when they’re adults. The other thing I wanted to do with this book was to encourage kids to look for fun activities that don’t require electronic devices and don’t require them to be looking at screens. Most of us who are adults remember our childhoods and the way we would spend hours playing catch and riding our bikes, and doing many of the things that Lilah does in the book. In my opinion, those are the most rewarding types of activities for kids because they don’t need money or devices or passwords. They just need to be able to enjoy the simple pleasures that life has to offer.  

Do you have more stories planned featuring Lilah?

Well, I now have a third grandchild, Dylan, so it looks like this series of books is going to be at least a trilogy. But as for Lilah and Beau, I don’t think we’ve seen the last of them. In fact, there might be an installment featuring all three of them someday. That’s my hope, anyway. In regard to Lilah specifically, her message of joy and positivity has resonated with readers and reviewers, so I’m very interested in seeing her adventures continue, most likely with a friend.   

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