Launching my first children’s picture book 12

Stacey Became A Frog One Day is my first published children’s book although I’ve had three children’s stories published before.* It is the first of 15 separate children’s manuscripts that I have written. Publishing it, is a long-delayed investment in myself.

Other than staying safe and sane, getting Stacey published is what I accomplished during the Covid-19 pandemic, when the majority of my paid work, most of which was designed around public events, programs and meetings, evaporated. When the public couldn’t gather, I had free time.
I also met a young woman, Delanda Coleman, who’d self-published her first children’s book, More Than A Princess, and offered to work with me to get my book done. Hiring her was an incredibly liberating experience. She is Director of Product Marketing for a major software company and knows how to segment projects into discreet parts and to get a project completed. She is a dream-maker for me. (I hope I didn’t wear her out so much in this first project that she won’t continue for the next three manuscripts which I have lined up and am working on umpteenth drafts of.)

Stacey Became a Frog One Day is the type of simple picture book that I loved reading as a young mother to my children and as a grandmother to my grandchildren. I enjoy reading children’s books and have collected children’s books myself with a particular fondness for books featuring children who are Black and Brown.* I used to review children’s books for the Bay State Banner newspaper, The Horn Book, and for the School/Library Journal. I also gift children’s books to newborns and young children in the random booking that I do when traveling on public transportation.****

Back to Stacey, it is meant to be read aloud to a child. Stacey Became a Frog One Day: follows the days of the week; builds vocabulary as it describes the movements of the animals Stacey “becomes”; features a loving Black family; and shows the joy of being a Black girl

You’re invited to attend the Stacey Became a Frog One Day virtual event with The Black & Brown Book Club for Saturday, November 21 at 11:30am. The event will include giveaways and a Q&A session with me and with founders of BBBC. The event is free. Please pass on the invite and RSVP HERE
I hope to see you there. Thank you.

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Notes:

*You can read the two stories I had published in Ebony Jr. and The DIctopedia here.
**Turns out I did wear Delanda out, so I am hunting for another Project Manager for my second children’s picture book.
***In 1980, I co-produced, with Judy Richardson, a Third World Children’s Book and Film Festival at the Harriet Tubman House in Boston.

Please visit my author website to order copies of Stacey, which can be ordered on Amazon.com or purchased at the Frugal Bookstore in Roxbury.

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