Today is a special day, because we woke up to the news that our new picture book, Knit Back Together, is now available on Amazon.com. We hurdled a few obstacles, including changing the layout from landscape to portrait, so we are especially grateful to announce that we did it.
We've had some magnets and stickers made, so we're ready
for author visits and book signings. Our first one is scheduled
for October 4th at our local ice cream parlor, the Scoop Shop.
Here's my From The Author piece with a bit of the backstory:
The seed for Knit Back Together was sown in 2019, as we were helping my mom downsize for her move into assisted living. In her closet, a pair of unfinished slippers still on the knitting needles that had once belonged to her mom, Grandma Larsen, who had died nearly twenty years earlier.
With my very basic knitting skills, I was able to finish them up, decorate them with puff balls in the leftover yarn, and give them to mom as a gift to wear in her new home. Though dementia already had her in its hold and she couldn't completely understand, she seemed comforted at the thought that she was wearing her mom's handiwork again after all of these years.
When Mom died five years later, those slippers resurfaced, and the Knit Back Together seed that had been germinating started to grow.
I imagined the grief that my own children were feeling at the death of their Grammy and paired it with the healing powers of knitting to weave together a story of love, loss, connection, friendship, grief, and hope.
To fertilize this seedling, my third realistic-fiction piece, I used what I experienced during the nearly twenty-year tenure of Westwood Elementary school's knit-for-service club to stitch the details together. Then I went back to that school and invited its current Art teacher, the talented McKenna Giamfortone, to bring my words to life with her stunning watercolor blackline sketches. Since her own daughter's name is Frances, I felt sure it was a project that she'd want to partner with me on, and I feel so blessed that she said yes. Her brilliant scrapbook-style illustrations absolutely make our story extraordinarily special.
My picture books all share a common theme: Kindhearted friends just walking one another home with empathy, compassion and joy. And they are all enriched by backpages; this one is complete with a coloring sheet, engaging reflection questions, strategies to get the ball rolling on a knitting club, and a recipe for Gramma Emma's Monster Cookies.
I'm especially grateful to internationally-known speaker, author, character education guru, and parenting expert Dr. Michele Borba, who added a list of 12 tools for helping our children adapt to loss as they walk with grief.
If you are looking for the story of a youngster whose feelings run the gamut from happily comfortable to lost and alone with everything in between, then join Levi and Frances on their journey through life and prepare to be touched as his broken heart gets knit back together.
From my heart to yours, with so much love and light.
No comments
I really enjoy hearing from my readers; thanks for sharing your reflections with us!