Playing Through The Seasons: Budding Flowers, Breezy Days is a children’s book that was written by Essie Bell and illustrated by Anastasia Pronina
About the book:
This is the second book in the Playing Through the Seasons series. Spring is a wonderful season, and this book shows you just how great it can be in both the rain and the sunshine!
Spring is a season full of new growth and rain with many fun activities to do. Come explore how this father and daughter find different ways to play together, come rain or sun.
The first book in this series is Playing Through the Seasons: Cold Noses, Crisp Air.
Why did you write this book?
I started writing books just over a year ago. I have always loved writing and once I had kids, I realized how important it was to have good books to read to them. I decided to try writing my own books and fell in love with it. My newest book, Playing Through the Seasons: Budding Flowers, Breezy Days is a little different from my other books because it features a main character who is deaf.
My family adopted my younger sister, Gislene, twelve years ago. Shortly after she came home from Haiti, we found out she had significant hearing loss. She was later diagnosed with Usher’s Syndrome. She has lost almost all her hearing and her night vision. She currently wears a cochlear implant.
Gislene has grown up knowing she was different from others because she is deaf. She rarely found movie characters or book characters she could relate to, but when she does, it makes her day. She loves the movie “The Quiet Place” because a main character is deaf. The majority of the movie is done in ASL, which she is fluent in. She could understand it and feels seen and heard while watching it.
I wanted to give her that experience in a book as well. I sent my illustrator a picture of Gislene when she was younger and asked her to include a hearing aid in the illustrations. Gislene was thrilled when she realized that there was a character that not only looked like her but also had hearing loss.
As a CTRS, I want to help more children be able to see themselves in characters and I plan to include other populations in my future books as well.
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