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Tag: Children’s Books

  • The Story Behind A Rainbow of Shapes

    Sometimes a children’s book begins with a story that has nothing to do with becoming an author—and everything to do with being a mom.

    A Rainbow of Shapes began with my son.

    The moment that started it

    In kindergarten, I learned that my son was color deficient.

    Learning that was heartbreaking for me as his mom. I wanted to help him learn without making him feel like there was something wrong with the way he saw the world.

    I wasn’t looking for a business idea. I wasn’t trying to create a product.

    I was trying to help my child.

    I found a simple way to help him learn colors

    Once he could read, I taught him to read the names printed on his crayons and markers.

    If he saw a color differently, he could still learn what that color was called.

    I also taught him shapes.

    And I started thinking about how colors and shapes could come together through creativity and play.

    Then the little moments started making sense

    There was the red hammer his dad asked him to bring—and he never brought it.

    There was the day he told me, “My mom has green hair like my teacher.” My hair was blonde.

    There was the school artwork where he looked at a pink sky and told me, “What you mean mom look its pink in the sky.”

    Once we understood that he was seeing colors differently, our family started asking a different question:

    “What color do you see?”

    That simple question became an important part of how we understood his experience.

    Creating gave me something positive to focus on

    As a mom, I could have spent all my energy focusing on the problem.

    Instead, creating gave me something purposeful to build.

    It gave me happy thoughts instead of constantly thinking, “My son has this issue.”

    I wanted to create something that could help my son and other moms and children who might be going through something similar.

    A Rainbow of Shapes was created in 2008

    That idea became A Rainbow of Shapes in 2008.

    The book brought together the things I had been thinking about: primary colors, shapes, creativity, imagination, and learning through play.

    The original purpose is captured in the wording on the back of the book:

    “An imaginative approach to help children with color deficiencies by using the primary colors of the rainbow in various shapes.”

    That sentence still says exactly what I wanted the book to do.

    It wasn’t about telling my son what he should see

    The book wasn’t created as a medical resource.

    It came from a mother trying to find a creative way to help her child learn.

    I didn’t want my son to feel that his way of seeing the world made him wrong.

    I wanted learning to have another doorway.

    And the idea grew beyond the book

    The book was one part of the story.

    The larger idea was always about giving children opportunities to discover, imagine, learn, and create.

    Years later, that idea became the foundation for bringing KidsWonderArt back.

    Today, A Rainbow of Shapes is still at the center of that story—and the original idea is still important to me.

    If you’re here because of the book

    If the story behind A Rainbow of Shapes speaks to you, you can take a closer look at the book through the Shop page on this site.

    Visit the Shop to learn more about A Rainbow of Shapes.

    You can also explore the full KidsWonderArt story or visit Creativity & Learning for simple activities inspired by the original idea.

  • When Motherhood Gives You Something You Never Expected to Create

    Sometimes motherhood hands you a problem you never expected—and somehow, in trying to help your child, you discover something you didn’t know was waiting inside you.

    I never set out to create a children’s book.

    I was simply a mom trying to help her son.

    It started with something heartbreaking

    In kindergarten, I learned that my son was color deficient.

    Learning that was heartbreaking for me as his mom. I kept thinking about how I could help him learn without making him feel like there was something wrong with the way he saw the world.

    I wasn’t looking to become an author. I wasn’t building a business. I was trying to find a way to help my child.

    I started with what I knew

    Once he could read, I taught him to read the names printed on his crayons and markers. That gave him a way to learn what colors were called, even when he was seeing them differently.

    I also taught him shapes.

    Then I started putting ideas together.

    Colors. Shapes. Creating. Learning.

    Little by little, something began to take shape.

    Creating changed the way I felt

    This part is just as important to me as the book itself.

    Thinking about my son’s color deficiency could leave me focused on the problem. Creating something purposeful gave me somewhere else to put those feelings.

    It gave me happy thoughts.

    Instead of constantly thinking, “My son has this issue,” I could think, “What can I create that might help?”

    That question changed everything.

    A book I never planned to write

    In 2008, that creative idea became A Rainbow of Shapes.

    I wanted something that brought colors and shapes together in an imaginative way. Something purposeful. Something that could help my son and potentially help other moms and children who were going through something similar.

    The wording on the back of the book still captures the original purpose:

    “An imaginative approach to help children with color deficiencies by using the primary colors of the rainbow in various shapes.”

    It wasn’t a medical book.

    It was a mom’s creative response to a difficult moment.

    And then KidsWonderArt came back around

    The book was one part of the story.

    The bigger idea was always about children discovering, imagining, learning, and creating.

    Years later, that same idea became the foundation for bringing KidsWonderArt back.

    What started with one mom trying to help her son became something I could share with other families, parents, grandparents, teachers, and little artists.

    What motherhood taught me

    I used to think that helping my child meant finding the right answer.

    Sometimes it means finding another way to ask the question.

    Sometimes it means noticing what your child is showing you.

    And sometimes, unexpectedly, it means creating something you never planned to create.

    That’s one of the things I love most about motherhood. You can start out simply trying to get through one moment, and that moment can quietly lead you somewhere completely unexpected.

    The thing I almost missed

    If I had only focused on the difficult part of that experience, I might never have created the book.

    Instead, I found something purposeful to build from it.

    And that is a lesson I still carry with me:

    You don’t always get to choose what motherhood puts in your path. But sometimes you get to choose what you create from it.

    Read more about the story behind A Rainbow of Shapes, or explore the Creativity & Learning section for simple ideas inspired by that original vision.