The resisting story
On writing a children's book
At the start of my Master’s degree, I knew I wanted to write and publish a children’s book. I also knew what the story would be about – a little girl, who travels around the African continent and meets magical guardians who share with her the secrets of the lands (lessons for taking care of our home, this big blue planet). I had no idea how I’d go about it; all I knew is that it was “a fire burning within my soul” (as I once shared with a friend).
What became clearer in time, however, is that while I wanted to write a children’s book, that’s not the story I really wanted to tell. My initial story inclination felt like I was solving a puzzle I’d already solved countless times before. Much to my internal resistance, the story that was drawing me to turn to was more of a mosaic where the pieces, in their oddest shapes, would end up trying to exist together. This beautiful reflection particularly stood out as I began to engage more and more with that resisting story:
“In the sacred task of telling stories for the young, how do we tell the truth and make the truth bearable?”
Kate DiCamillo (On Being: On Nurturing Capacious Hearts)
I’ve found that leaning into internal resistance can sometimes lead to the most unexpected yet wondrous of places, and so I chose to do that. I turned to that resisting story and enrolled in a one-month children’s book writing course led by award-winning children’s book author, Sihle-isipho Nontoshkweni. Over 5 weeks and through Sihle’s guidance, I wrote, refined, rewrote, and eventually ended up with a first draft of “Azi’s Feathery Heart”: a story whose key themes may be found scattered across these musings, but speaks directly to children. If I was to reframe Kate DiCamillo’s question to capture the essence of Azi’s Feathery Heart, it would be:
“In the sacred and tender task of supporting children navigate bereavement, how can we do so while allowing them to understand and hold the complexities of both joy and sorrow?”
Truly, with such a question, there is no right or wrong answer. In fact, there shouldn’t even be an immediate answer since the needs of a child will greatly differ based on context, a guardian’s (emotional) capabilities and so much more. For Azi’s Feathery Heart, given the many faces of the story I could’ve told, the complexities of joy and sorrow in child bereavement are what kept resurfacing. I remember one of my writing coaches, who was also navigating the underlying theme of the book, once tell me “Mine the grief.” I didn’t understand what she meant at first but as we spoke, I began to understand that telling stories to the young is also about immersing oneself into the mind and body of the child reader. And in Azi’s case, a child wondering how joy and sorrow can occupy the same space having just lost a loved one. This was without a doubt the most difficult but the most rewarding of tasks in this writing process. Not only was it a huge learning process, but it was also a deeply healing one. Sometimes, resisting stories have a lot more to offer than we can imagine.
Since then, I’ve been researching publishers and potential partners (specifically cancer organisations). In the course, we’d explored publication channels and what felt like the right choice for this chapter book is a hybrid model – one that allows me to maintain autonomy in the editorial and illustration process while getting support in other ‘traditional’ ways. I’ve looked at several publishing houses that do this, specifically those whose mission speaks to the story, mostly children's support, grief, and mental health. My wish is to have the book published in the coming year and for it to add a tinker of hope, light, and love wherever it lands. For now though, here’s a synopsis of the story:
Azi’s Feathery Heart is a journey of grief, healing, and the enduring power of love. The story follows Azi, a young girl who shares a deep bond with her father. A curious young girl, Azi is drawn to big white birds with long feathery tails flying across the sky (planes). Her father explains the concept of a plane’s "feathery tail" as a magical connection of love that unites loved ones across distances. However, Azi’s world begins to change when her father is diagnosed with cancer. His once-strong presence fades as his health deteriorates, leaving Azi scared and confused. With his eventual passing on, Azi struggles to cope with grief. In her sorrow, she crafts a heart made of feathers, hoping that it will help her stay connected to her father and escape the pain and sadness. The feathered heart allows her to float through life, detached from both joy and sorrow, protecting her from the weight of emotions but also leaving her numb to life's beauty. Over time and years after her father’s passing, this becomes her way of life, but a chance encounter with a little girl reminds Azi of the heart she once gave up in place of a feathered one. Realizing she has been disconnected from her true feelings, she returns home to reclaim her original heart. By replacing her feathery heart with her real one, she begins to feel deeply again—embracing both sorrow and joy. Eventually, Azi comes to understand that her father's love, symbolized by the "feathery tail," has always been with her, connecting them even beyond death.
What resisting story might you consider turning to?
(A huge thanks to my sister and my partner who I shared the first draft with and who received it with so much tenderness and insightful feedback. Thank you, so much :) And if you’re curious, the album ‘The Dawn of a New Earth’ by Back to Earth was on repeat on the evenings I worked on it; have a listen to the beautiful symphonies).
That’s all for this month, I’ll see you in October!
Great job Lizzy. I'm really curious to see how you explore a theme as heavy as grief in a manner that is appropriate for a young audience.