GENRE: *Diverse, SEL
WORDS: 594
Query:
To all the PBParty judges, agents, and editors,
I am submitting my 594-word manuscript, MOM’S OCEAN, for your consideration. For ages 4 through 8, it shows the impact of untreated parental depression on a child. It demonstrates the importance of extended family support, medication, and therapy in making life better with a lifelong invisible disability. Daisy sees her mom’s happy times as yellow, the color of their love. Mom is often sad, and when she’s feeling blue, it’s a whole ocean of sadness. Daisy goes to stay with Nana while Mom starts treatment. Mom visits Daisy, and over time, Daisy’s definition of family expands as they begin to accept Mom’s colors.
MOM’S OCEAN is inspired by my own family history. Both my sister and I are bipolar, and I saw how my nieces and nephew thrived when she and my mother came together to raise them. This story has the love between mother and daughter of MAMA’S DAYS (Andi Diehn and Angeles Ruiz), combined with a struggling child’s need for reassurance in the 2022 reissue of Crescent Dragonwagon’s WILL IT BE OKAY? (illustrated by Jessica Love).
I’m a SCBWI member and Children’s Book Academy graduate. My debut picture book, HENRY THE BOY, was published in 2019 by Penny Candy Books, who also accepted this manuscript, but closed before it could be contracted. My middle grade graphic novel series, THE FANTASTIC FREEWHEELER, stars a superhero who, like me, has cerebral palsy and uses a wheelchair. The first four books released in 2023, and the next four are slated for Spring and Fall of 2025. I’m partnered with my own fantastic service dog, the soon-to-be-retired Patterson.
Thank you for your time.
Excerpt:
For Mom and me, love looked yellow, like lemonade under our tree. Daffodils in the yard. Buttery pancakes.
Except when it didn’t.
When we played in bed, the blankets and sheets were a blizzard to escape.
[The blankets and sheets are white.]
When she got up, my heart glowed. Like sun melting snow.
On happy days, we walked to the dog park and pretended the biggest dog was ours.
What inspired you to write this story & what do you have in common with it:
The representation of invisible disabilities like my bipolar disorder is just as important as the representation of physical disabilities like my cerebral palsy. I wanted to create a realistic, hopeful story children could understand about the power of family love to endure. There is also power in asking for help.
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