Finding a niche in children's books

Photo: Henry A. Koshollek
Madison children’s book authors Steve Kihm (left), Sharron Hubbard-Moyer and Debi Kennedy. By Debra Carr-Elsing
August 31, 2006

Anger is not who we are -- it is merely an experience we all share, says author Debi Kennedy of Madison. She knows what she's talking, and writing, about.

One month after 9/11 her daughter, Elisabeth "Ellie" Rose, then 20 months old, was diagnosed with a brain tumor. The following day, on Oct. 12, 2001, Ellie had surgery on her dad's birthday. Not all of the tumor was able to be removed.

"Ellie is now 6, and she has good days and bad days, but we've decided to make every single one of them count and be enjoyable," Kennedy says. "Our focus is on laughing and having fun."

To help everyone in the family get through the difficult time of Ellie's chemotherapy last year, Kennedy wrote, illustrated and self-published a beautiful children's book titled "The Angry Monster Book" ($8.99). Her husband, Thom, encouraged the therapeutic, creative process.

"I've taken art classes throughout my life and working on the book was a good distraction for me," Kennedy recalls. "Reading the book, however, helped Ellie, who was angry after going through a long series of doctor appointments and medical procedures," Kennedy recalls.

In her book, a girl named "Emma Ocean" (pronounced "e-mo-tion") learns how to pay attention to anger and to express it appropriately. Within the pages are conversation tips and research information for parents.

"The book just flowed out of me," says Kennedy, who is a life coach and has a background in clinical psychology.

Similar writing experiences were shared by two other self-published Madison writers of children's books, Steve Kihm and Sharron Hubbard-Moyer, who, along with Kennedy, formed the Trifecta Authors Group.

"We support each other's literary pursuits," Kihm says, "and we baked love into each of our books as we told stories from our childhood."

His book, "The Lost Candy Bar" ($6.95), is a charming tale about relationships and an amusing fishing trip on the Mississippi River that he took as a boy with his cranky grandfather.

Last year, Kihm's book, which started out as an e-mail message to a friend's son, received a Merit Award from the Midwest Independent Publishers Association. Jessica Doyle also picked it as a Book of the Month selection for the Read On Wisconsin Book Club. Hubbard-Moyer's book, "Rosie's New Bike" ($7.95), is a true story about a purple banana-seat bike and the simple fun shared by two friends, Rosie and Link.

"I was born in Arkansas, and the characters are named after my parents, who died in 2000," Hubbard-Moyer says. She wrote the book under the name Sharron Hubbard, and her illustrator is Kristin Schleihs, a graduate of the University of Wisconsin-Madison who now lives in Tennessee.

"My youngest daughter never knew her grandparents," Hubbard-Moyer says, "and this is the first in a series of books I've written from bedtime stories I used to tell both my daughters about fun times their grandparents had together."

A family support specialist with the Exchange Center for the Prevention of Child Abuse, Hubbard-Moyer is a volunteer firefighter with the town of Madison and president of the board of directors of the Family Support and Resource Center.

She's also a member of the Urban League Guild and a mentor for children with behavioral issues through Children Come First. "It's culturally significant the way Sharron's book takes a piece of history from the African-American oral tradition and preserves it into the written word," Kihm says.

It's all about passing on lessons in life and going back to simpler times, he adds.

Positive benefits also are coming out of Kennedy's book, which is being used by mental health professionals who work with children. Her "Angry Monster Book" should be required reading for everyone, including adults, Kihm says.

"A lot of the bad things in the world come from anger," he adds, "and Debi's book is about promoting peace and listening to what your emotions are telling you. It's a book that could change people's lives."

By day, Kihm is a financial analyst at the Wisconsin Public Service Commission. He has a bachelor's degree in economics and master's degrees in quantitative analysis and finance from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

"In other words, I'm in the arena of technical work, and I'm all left-brained, except for my writing, which uses the other side of my brain," he quips.

To illustrate his book, Kihm worked with Verona artist Tom Lowes. He also got permission from Hershey's to use their trademarked candy bar. The chocolate company even sent him a case of more than 400 candy bars to show their appreciation for his wonderful story. "I was handing out candy bars for a while," Kihm says.

Of his Trifecta Authors Group, he adds: "Each of us started out writing for special children in our lives, so these are all very loving and intense efforts."

Love's in all of our books, he adds, and when that magic ingredient goes into the telling of a story, the book takes on a life of its own and needs to be shared.