I write picture books for the same reason I write apps: most things are explained badly. A storm is not a monster, it is water and air doing loud work. Sleep is not nothing, it is a whole crew working the night shift. These are plain-language stories about how a thing works, or how a feeling works, for kids who ask why.
Every title is also available as an ebook, free to read with a Kindle Unlimited subscription or as a Kindle Store purchase. Tap "View on Amazon" and pick the format on the product page.
Buying for a classroom, library or waiting room? Orders of 20 books or more are $10 a book, direct from me, mix and match any titles. Bulk and school orders
A board book series for the family shelf: loving a child before they arrive, through the hardest days, and every goodnight in between. Family-shape-neutral, written for whoever is holding the baby.
I Loved You Before Hello
Before hello, before everything, you were already loved.
A tender, family-shape-neutral board book about loving a child before they ever arrive, through the wish, the wait, and the wondering, right up to the very first hello. A gentle keepsake for new parents, however their family came to be.
Best for: Best as a baby shower or new-parent gift, for any family however it came together, adoption, birth, blended, or otherwise.
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I Loved You Before Hello
Every first happens only once. I was there for all of yours.
A fox parent walks through one whole year of a small kit's firsts, the rain it tried to catch, the best stick it gave away to a first friend, the snow that landed on a first nose, and the birthday star that came out early just for it.
Best for: Best as a gift for a baby shower or first birthday, short enough to read to a wriggling one-year-old, written for whoever is holding them.
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I Loved You Before Hello
Anyone can love a sunny day. This book is about the other ones.
A fox parent waits out the weather when a toddler's feelings get too big for their body, and says the thing every toddler needs and cannot ask for. Sunny you. Stormy you. Sideways you. The whole fox.
Best for: Best for the exact days a toddler is hardest to love, tantrums, tears, and the whole small storm, read together once things are calm again.
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I Loved You Before Hello
Every day ends the same three ways. Boop. Tuck. Star.
The series closer, following one small ritual, boop, tuck, star, from a brand-new baby all the way to a grown fox on a hillside of its own doing the same three things with a small someone.
Best for: Best as a bedtime book at one and a keepsake gift at twenty, for the grown-ups reading it just as much as the child.
View on AmazonIt started as one small ritual: Mom draws a purple sun on Josie's palm and on her own, press yours and mine buzzes. Then it turns out the same trick, a tiny hand-drawn button and a grown-up's steady explanation, can be redrawn for whatever a kid is actually facing, a first sleepover, a scary new skill, a mistake that feels too big to fix.
The Goodbye Button
Press it, and Mom's buzzes. Anywhere. Every time.
The night before school starts, Josie is NOT going. So Mom draws a little sun on each of their palms, a goodbye button, for whenever missing someone feels too big. By pickup, Josie pressed hers a few times. Mom pressed hers eleven.
Best for: Best for kids (and parents) dreading a first drop-off, at school, daycare, or camp, and any morning where saying goodbye feels too big.
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The Goodbye Button
The button works anywhere. Across a room. Across a town. Tonight, Josie finds out if it works all night long.
Josie's first night away from Mom, at Grandma Rosa's. Three palms get a purple sun this time. The garden, the bread dough, and a cat named Chancla keep her busy until bedtime, when missing someone wakes up, and Grandma opens a cookie tin holding the very first goodbye button, drawn thirty years ago in that same room.
Best for: Best for kids facing a first sleepover or overnight away, and the grandparents and grown-ups holding down the far end of the button.
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The Goodbye Button
The goodbye button was for missing. This one, said Mom, is for borrowing.
Josie has a strict policy about the big pool: no. So Mom draws an orange lightning bolt on the back of her hand, where the water can't reach it. Week by week the bolt fades, until float day, when it's worn down to nothing right when she needs it, and Josie finds out all that borrowed brave went into her, not the marker.
Best for: Best for kids stuck on the top step of a new physical skill, swim lessons, a bike, a climbing wall, who need courage they don't think they have yet.
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The Goodbye Button
Josie's painting was ruined. Capital R. Mom got the marker. Green, this time.
One elbow and a paint cup take out the whole sky. This time the button is a green squiggle, a scribble that turned out fine. Press it, say oops out loud, and see what the mistake turns into instead of what it ruined. The blotch becomes a whale, and when a classmate has her own art-show disaster, Josie is the one holding out her palm.
Best for: Best for perfectionist kids who melt down over mistakes, and need a way to get from ruined to fixable.
View on AmazonLuna, Sophie, and Joy are real dogs who share a real backyard with Joe. Each book pairs one park-dog moment, a storm, a vet visit, a new puppy, with a friendship or big-feelings lesson for kids who love animals.
Three Dogs, One Park
Luna loves to find things. Sophie loves to chill. And little Joy? Joy loves trouble.
Every morning, three very different dogs meet at Miller Park. But when Joy's naughtiest game goes wrong, she ends up truly, tail-and-all stuck. It takes Luna's nose, Sophie's calm, and everything that makes them different to save the day.
Best for: Best for dog-loving kids and any kid learning that a friend group works because everyone is different, not despite it.
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Three Dogs, One Park
Luna's not scared of anything. Except one thing. Today, the one thing is coming to the park.
Luna is brave about everything, except thunder, and today the storm is rolling straight for Miller Park. When a soaked kitten needs rescuing mid-downpour, Luna finds out the other half of brave, going anyway.
Best for: Best for kids scared of thunderstorms who need a model for what brave actually looks like: doing the thing while still scared.
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Three Dogs, One Park
Sophie knows that smell. Clean floors and worry. Vet day. All three of them. Same morning.
Sophie, Luna, and Joy all have appointments the same morning, and the waiting room turns out to be worse than the actual shots. One pinch, one second, and they're back at the park by afternoon, braver and covered in stickers.
Best for: Best for kids nervous about their own checkups or shots, using the dogs' vet day to show that the waiting is always the worst part.
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Three Dogs, One Park
Three dogs. One park. That's the whole arrangement. Then the gate opens, and four little paws walk in.
Three dogs, one park, one very settled arrangement, until a wobbly new puppy named Bean walks through the gate. Luna, Sophie, and Joy learn that sunny patches, and hearts, stretch further than they thought.
Best for: Best for a kid adjusting to a new sibling, pet, or friend joining their space, and worried there won't be enough room left for them.
View on AmazonA color-changing chameleon whose skin shows exactly how she feels. Starts as a counting board book about eating the rainbow, then grows into a first-feelings series about naming what's going on inside you.
Cami the Chameleon
Cami the chameleon is gray. Gray toes. Gray tail. Gray tummy.
Then one morning her tummy wakes up hungry, and one red strawberry changes everything. Count along as Cami eats her way through every color of the rainbow, and the whole garden finally sees her shine.
Best for: Best for toddlers learning their colors and counting, with a gentle nudge toward trying fruits and vegetables of every color.
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Cami the Chameleon
Cami's colors came from the garden. Today, they're coming from inside.
Her berry goes squish under a snail and she turns hot, stompy red. Her butterfly friend flies away south and the red drains into slow, heavy blue. A first feelings book built on the one skill that actually works for a two-year-old: naming the feeling before it runs the whole day.
Best for: Best for toddlers just starting to learn feelings words, mad, sad, happy, shy, scared, through a character whose skin does the naming for her.
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Cami the Chameleon
Cami has every color there is. Then she meets someone with none.
A little gray gecko named Pip has spent his whole life unseen. Cami hugs him, and her colors pass to him, hug by hug, high-five by high-five, without the story ever once saying the word "share."
Best for: Best for kids who resist sharing because it feels like having less, told as a story where giving turns out to cost nothing at all.
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Cami the Chameleon
Cami woke up beige. Beige is not one of her colors.
A sick-day story that gets the real thing right: better arrives slowly, rest is the first medicine, and a friend fussing over you with a leaf blanket helps more than it seems like it should.
Best for: Best for a kid home sick, and for a grown-up who wants a gentle sick-day script instead of a battle over eating and resting.
View on AmazonA board book series that follows one garden through a full day and a full year, hushing to sleep, waking to morning, letting go in autumn, and resting deep through winter. Read at bedtime, or whichever one fits the season.
Hush, Little Garden
The sun is going down. But the garden is still LOUD.
Follow the hush as it travels from bee to cricket to frog, growing softer with every page, until the only sound left in the whole garden is breathing.
Best for: Best as a lap-read bedtime book for babies and toddlers who need one calm, repeatable sound-by-sound routine before sleep.
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Hush, Little Garden
The Moon sang the garden to sleep. Somebody has to sing it awake.
The exact mirror of Hush, Little Garden, running the other way. The light steps up from deep blue to gray-pink to gold, and the sounds pile on instead of falling away, until the whole garden is making its morning song at once.
Best for: Best for early risers and morning routines, the same calm rhythm as bedtime, aimed at waking up instead of winding down.
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Hush, Little Garden
The garden held on all summer. Tonight the wind teaches it how to let go.
A tender first book about change and goodbyes, for kids losing something small, a season, a friend who moved, a blanket outgrown. A bare tree in the dusk points out that every branch tip is already holding next spring's leaves.
Best for: Best for a kid going through a small loss or change, a move, a friend leaving, a season ending, who needs to hear that letting go and what's next can coexist.
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Hush, Little Garden
The garden isn't gone. It's sleeping deep, and dreaming of green.
After the last leaf lands, the garden gets quiet in a brand-new way, not bedtime quiet, bigger. Frog, cricket, and bee each make their own kind of winter bed, while snow tucks the whole garden in, corner to corner.
Best for: Best for introducing hibernation and winter rest to little ones, and as a gentle series closer once the nights get long and cold.
View on AmazonWobbles are wiggly little worry-creatures only Mara can see, and they grow bigger every time she keeps them secret. Each book puts her in one specific nervous moment, a new school, a sleepover, a checkup, a stage, and finds the same fix: say it out loud.
The Wobbles
The night before her new school, Mara finds a wobble under her bed.
Worries are wiggly little creatures only Mara can see, and they grow every time she keeps them secret. But wobbles have one weakness: say them out loud, and they shrink.
Best for: Best for kids anxious about a new school or big change, giving worry a shape and a name so it stops running the show quietly.
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The Wobbles
Mara packed her toothbrush. She packed her pillow. She did NOT pack the wobbles. They came anyway.
Mara packs everything for her first sleepover except the wobbles, and they show up anyway. One whole night away from home later, she learns wobbles always come along, they just ride smaller once you say them out loud.
Best for: Best for kids nervous about their first sleepover or night away from home.
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The Wobbles
The checkup was Thursday. The wobbles arrived Monday. Waiting, it turns out, is what wobbles eat for breakfast.
Four days of waiting before one small shot, and the wobbles pile up faster than Mara can name them. By the time Doctor Okoye is done, Mara's figured out the real trick, the waiting is always bigger than the thing.
Best for: Best for kids dreading a doctor's visit or shot, especially the days spent worrying beforehand.
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The Wobbles
Mara got one line in the spring show. One. The wobbles heard about it immediately.
One line in the spring show turns into a stage full of wobbles, the jittery little worry-blobs only Mara can see. She learns the newest series rule, stubborn wobbles get bored by practice, and finds out scared and brave can share the same spotlight.
Best for: Best for kids nervous about performing, a recital, a class play, a spring show, and worried they'll freeze up.
View on AmazonNarrated by the most patient character in any kindergarten, the round rainbow rug in Room 7. It never talks and never moves, it just holds everything: a new kid frozen in the doorway, a best-friend fight, the kid who can't sit still, and the last week of school when even a rug has to say goodbye.
There's Room on the Rug
Theo counted the spots in the circle. There was no space for him. Not one.
The rug in Room 7 has held every kind of kid: the loud ones, the quiet ones, the one who cried every morning in October. But when a new boy stands in the doorway and finds no room, the rug can't scoot. Luckily, kids can.
Best for: Best for a kid joining a new classroom mid-year, and for the classmates already there learning to make room without being asked twice.
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There's Room on the Rug
I am the rug in Room 7. I have held every kind of kid. This week, I held a fight.
Priya and Marcus do everything side by side, until a block tower falls and the blame flies both ways. Words get loud, then mean, then silent, and for a whole day the two closest friends in Room 7 sit on opposite sides of the rug. It takes an escaped hamster named Waffles to bring them back to the same ring, and saying the hard thing out loud to actually fix it.
Best for: Best for kids in the middle of a best-friend fight who need the actual steps for making up, not just "say sorry."
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There's Room on the Rug
I am the rug in Room 7. Most kids sit on me. Jo orbits.
Knees bouncing, fingers drumming, always in motion, even during the quiet parts. It usually works out fine. Then one Tuesday it doesn't, and Jo ends up alone on the cold floor, certain the wiggle is the problem. It isn't. One small classroom idea, the Wiggle Ring, turns movement from something to apologize for into a tool, and the best welcome a new kid ever gets.
Best for: Best for kids whose motor runs a little warm, and for classrooms figuring out that sitting still isn't the only way to belong.
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There's Room on the Rug
I am the rug in Room 7. I have held this class all year. This week, they learn the biggest stretch of all: letting go.
After a whole year of lost teeth, hamster chases, and hard days made softer, the rug is retiring to the reading corner. Room 7 has one week to figure out how to let go. They throw it a retirement party, tell its stories one by one, and the teacher snips a piece of yarn from its frayed edge for every kid to carry into whatever comes next.
Best for: Best for the last week of school, a classroom saying goodbye, or any kid learning that endings don't erase what came before.
View on AmazonKofi keeps a notebook of body mysteries, and his Auntie Yaa, a nurse, helps him solve them: why his tummy knows how he feels, why his heart races, why sleep fixes grumpy, and why yawns spread. Real science told cozy, with diagrams and reference pages in the back.
Tummy & Feelings
Kofi's tummy always knows how he feels before he does.
Before big moments, Kofi's stomach flutters like a jar of moths, and he can't figure out how it knows. When his nurse aunt explains the nerve that links his brain and his gut, the second brain in his belly, Kofi finally understands what his body is telling him. Includes a labeled body diagram, a glossary, and a guided tummy journal.
Best for: Best for kids who get nervous stomachaches before school, tests, or performances, and want to know why their body does that instead of just being told to relax.
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Tummy & Feelings
Kofi's heart went off like a drum solo at the top of the high dive. Auntie Yaa says it was doing exactly its job.
The swim test is Friday, the high dive is on it, and Kofi's heart keeps going DRUM SOLO. Auntie Yaa explains the Get-Ready Bell, how adrenaline gets a body ready, and the slow breathing trick that helps Kofi check: real tiger, or just Friday?
Best for: Best for kids whose racing heart before tests, performances, or a scary first try makes them think something is wrong, and who would rather understand the feeling than be told to calm down.
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Tummy & Feelings
By Thursday, Kofi hated his shoes, his cereal, and a cloud. Auntie Yaa asked one question: how did you sleep?
Kofi snaps at his best friend over a pencil and cries over a sandwich cut the wrong way. Auntie Yaa shows him the feelings volume knob, the loop between short sleep and big grumpy, and the night rinse that resets it all by morning.
Best for: Best for kids who melt down over small things when they are overtired, and for families who want a bedtime routine kids actually understand the reason for.
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Tummy & Feelings
Kofi yawned. Then Ama yawned. Then Auntie Yaa yawned. Then the DOG yawned. Kofi got the notebook.
One yawn spreads through the whole house, and Kofi needs to know why. He learns about mirror neurons, how moods ripple through a room, and the choice that comes after you catch a feeling: you always get to choose what you pass on.
Best for: Best for kids learning empathy, and for kids who soak up every mood around them and need to know they still get to choose what they send back out.
View on AmazonMateo is scared of the biggest things in nature: thunder, the ocean, a snowstorm, the dark. Each time, his abuela hands him the same tool, count it. A number turns something huge into something a kid can measure, respect, and go meet.
Count the Thunder
To Mateo, thunder was a monster. Then his abuela taught him to count.
A storm is not angry and it is not looking for you, it is water and air doing loud work. Count the seconds from the flash to the boom, divide by five, and you know how far away it is. A number is a lot less scary than a monster.
Best for: Best for kids who are scared of storms and do better with something concrete to hold onto than with being told there's nothing to be afraid of.
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Count the Thunder
The ocean was too big to trust. Then Abuela taught Mateo how to count it.
To Mateo, the ocean is a giant that never sleeps. Then Abuela shows him that waves come in families, the tide has a leash, and anything with a rhythm can be counted. Plus the deep rules that keep kids safe: feet where they touch, and a grown-up always watching.
Best for: Best for kids nervous at the beach who do better with a pattern to count than with being told the water is fine.
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Count the Thunder
The snow erased the whole street. Abuela handed Mateo a magnifying glass.
Mateo is sure the snow will just keep swallowing everything. Abuela, who saw her first snow as a grown-up, counts it with him: six arms on every flake, why snow makes the world so quiet, and how to tell playing weather from blizzard weather.
Best for: Best for kids uneasy about big winter storms, and curious kids who want the science of snow along with the fun.
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Count the Thunder
The power went out. The dark came in. Abuela picked up two blankets and headed for the roof.
To Mateo, the dark is full of maybe. On a rooftop during a blackout, Abuela teaches him to count to forty while his eyes adjust, and the sky turns itself on: starlight older than Abuela, a shooting star, and three stars that mean you are never all the way lost.
Best for: Best for kids afraid of the dark who need a way to wait it out, not just a nightlight.
View on AmazonSeveral of these books grew out of the same problem an app was built for. If one lands, the other probably will too.
One-off stories, plus the first books of series I'm still building out. Filter by theme, or browse everything.
Theo doesn't believe in germs. He's about to meet the whole zoo.
If he can't see them, they can't be real. Then his big sister turns him into a germ detective with a magnifying glass and a jar of glow-in-the-dark powder, and Theo learns exactly where germs travel, and the one simple trick that sends them down the drain.
Best for: Best for kids who treat handwashing as a rule instead of a reason, and need to actually picture what soap and water are doing.
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Wren has one rule about bedtime: she's against it.
Sleep is doing nothing, and she doesn't have time for nothing. Then her dad lets her in on a secret, and she meets the crew who work while she sleeps: the Sorter, the Repair Crew, the Grow Team, and the Cleaner. By morning, Wren understands sleep isn't nothing, it's the shift that makes tomorrow possible.
Best for: Best for kids who fight bedtime because it feels like missing out, and need a reason to sleep that isn't just "because I said so."
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Some days, feelings get too big for your socks. Zora knows just what to do.
When one Tuesday goes all wrong, Zora's feelings get too big to hold. One tool at a time, box breathing, a senses check, a worry jar, she learns that a big feeling is not a problem to make disappear. It just needs the right tool.
Best for: Best for kids who melt down before they can name what's wrong, and for the grown-up who wants concrete, repeatable tools instead of just "calm down."
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June thinks food comes from the fridge. You open the door. There it is. Boring.
Then Grandpa asks a dangerous question: do you know how far that sandwich traveled to get to your plate? Backward they go, piece by piece. A field of wheat. A baker up before the sun. A cow and a long patient wait. By the end, June's boring lunch has a whole cast of people in it.
Best for: Best for kids who think food just appears, and for a family that wants a gentle, non-preachy first look at where a meal actually comes from.
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Nia has five whole dollars. And a yellow kite she can't stop thinking about.
When Nia spends her first allowance all in one afternoon, the kite in the shop window feels further away than ever. Then Dad shows her a simple idea, three jars: Spend, Save, and Share. Includes a 3-jar guide and a fill-in tracker to try at home.
Best for: Best for kids getting their first allowance, and parents who want a simple spend, save, and share system instead of a lecture about money.
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Ten more sleeps till kindergarten! “Quick, Dad. We need plans.”
One rocket backpack. Two lucky socks. Ten crayon moons to cross off, one small ritual at a time. Milo is getting ready for the big first day, but at the gate, it turns out the plans weren't just for kids at all.
Best for: Best for kids counting down to a big first day who do better with a countdown ritual than with a surprise, and for the parent just as nervous as they are.
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Listen... the house is almost, almost quiet.
Every night, this house winds down one small sound at a time: the dishwasher's last swish, a dryer sock falling, slippers in the hall. Follow the light going down, room by room, until just one sound is left. Breathing. In, and out.
Best for: Best as a wind-down ritual for kids who need a sound-by-sound cue that it's really bedtime, not just a lights-off announcement.
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