Imani's Blues

Imani's Blues

WHAT INSPIRED THE STORY? "Imani's Blues" was inspired by the emotional challenges many children are facing during the pandemic. Adult are better able to adjust to change, but it's not always so easy for children.

The story was written to reinforce ways of staying healthy and acknowledge that staying emotionally healthy is important too. Sometimes we need a little help along the way.

CHALLENGES WE FACED? We learned about the competition very late, but I thought it would be good to involve my daughter who is a really good writer. She came up with the concept and the dialogue. We put our heads together to refine it a bit with some review help from a few friends. Then I started creating the illustrations.

The biggest challenge for us in creating the story was the short timeline. I've illustrated books before and the process typically takes a few months. But ANYTHING can happen during a pandemic, so we said "Let's do it!"

I'm happy we had the opportunity to submit and we hope lots of children are able to read the story.