Category: If I was an Armadillo where would I be?

I started this webpage so many years ago and I’ve never been able to get the feel of what I wanted to do with it but guess what? Life is funny like that, when you NEED to do something it MAKES you do the thing. So here I am sitting with my first blog post and all I want to do is copypasta the bio I just had to write for the last profile to get a freaking GLOBAL icon (I feel that would be valid because it is rather clear and concise) but as this is about a children’s book.

I digress, basically, I found out that every book needs a website. Like, no excuses, they want you to have a website, and honestly? I’m kind of excited to make one for my children’s book If I was an Armadillo where would I be? Which I STILL cannot believe is published much less in my hands or even better the hands of my sweet children. My daughter not only read it to her class but also to her little brother’s class. Their excitement really does make the book as much theirs as it is mine. It brings a kind of joy that has been very absent from most of my life; it feels really great. 

So, the project, a review! I would say it was pretty far off from what the TikTok “It’S sO eAsY! dO iT yOuRsElF!” girl was saying and I absolutely disagree that KDP is a user-friendly system (we’ll get to that later). I did take her advice and I went through Fivver and dug through a few hundred artists until I found my Illustrator Indra Audipriatna. The sell for me was easily his characters. They’re bright-eyed, diverse,  multicultural, and extremely expressive.  I wanted fantastic characters with intense colors and amazing full-bleed pictures and what I got exceeds my expectations by a million!! 

HAHAHAHA!!! Look at what I sent him!! I’m never going to stop laughing at my rough drafts. They give me life!! HAHAHAHA!

WAIT!! WAIT!! This is the one!! HAHAHAHA!! Indra is a genius!!

I really am happy with how everything turned out. I made sure to research and keep all of the “truths” entirely factual and explained to both my Illustrator and inevitably my Layout Adjuster that we don’t start teaching children how to tell the difference between the truth and silliness early enough in my opinion. I used to be a High School teacher and it was kind of devastating how many students lacked the skills to think critically and could not really figure out the truth of any situation. They were easily manipulated and you could literally hear the words of others spilling from their lips when they spoke or tried to argue. This concerned me a great deal when it came to my own young children. As a survivor of Narcissistic Abuse (parental and spousal), I want/ed to ensure my children and children like them could see gaslighting from a mile away.

Below and in the book on page 3, it explains the logic portion of the game and simplifies it so that it’s not overwhelming for anyone that may find gaslighting a difficult subject to teach or discuss. I can’t promise it will work for you but as my own children age, I am impressed with their ability to call out actions that don’t match words and they speak up when someone is trying to change what they know to be the truth into something else.

(TW: Death) I feel like this is an appropriate place to discuss the dedication of this first book. I said above that I have always wanted to be a writer but I was not what you call “encouraged” at home (can’t have the secrets leaking out). My support system was and is very small and sometimes nonexistent but there was one woman who kept every piece I wrote and who always encouraged me to keep writing; my Aunt Barbara Ann Alden-VanWyk. When she passed away a few years ago she left me an inheritance that has been the only thing to sustain us (besides my ex’s paycheck) over the last few years. I know for sure she’s the reason we still have a roof over our head, so it was with great pride and hope that I took the very last of that inheritance and used it to hire Indra.

I have absolutely no regrets; when I close my eyes I can imagine the giggle she let out at the Anteater in the corner of the burrow giving off his little peace sign. She loved the little things in life, my strange view of the world around me, my hugs, and I will forever miss her.