Just listed on Amazon in Paperback, Kindle and Kindle Unlimited
Ily the Drama Queen Goes to the Vet
Meet ILY, the Drama Queen with the biggest heart and the loudest voice. In this heartwarming and humorous children’s book, ILY takes us on a journey to the vet where her emotions run wild. At home, she’s a calm and cuddly German Shepherd, but at the vet, she becomes a full-scale Drama Queen. From happy wiggles to operatic protests, ILY feels everything out loud and that’s okay. But with the help of patient veterinary staff and familiar routines, ILY learns that even scary moments can pass and calm can return. Told in playful rhyme and filled with expressive moments, this story gently shows young readers that it’s okay to have big feelings and that love and compassion can conquer any fear. Recommended for children ages 3-7, all dog lovers, and especially German Shepherd owners who can relate to their furkids being Drama Queens.
50% of all proceeds from sales of this book will be donated to Service Dogs NH. During National Service Dog Month and other associated days, we will be donating 100% of all sales.
A little backstory about this cause:
I first became familiar with Service Dogs NH several years ago, as I was called on to assist in a mentoring session with the founder, Brendan Madden. I have two words for Brendan: Amazing and Incredibly Inspirational (okay, so it’s more than two, but that doesn’t even describe the tip of the iceberg). I can’t express how much I admire his enthusiasm and for starting a nonprofit like this.
Why am I donating proceeds to this cause? Because Ily, (who is the loudmouthed star of this project) was originally destined to be a service dog. Because I very much admire Brendan and his goals for his nonprofit, and who his organization helps (both people and pups) and because this book was done for fun and not with the goal to conquer the children’s book market. As If 🙂
A little about Service Dogs NH:
The mission of Service Dogs NH is to provide financial assistance to service dog owners across the state, helping qualified individuals with the cost of veterinary care and medicines. They also focus on advocating and education, answering the questions and concerns of service dog owners while educating businesses, landlords, and the general public on the importance of service dogs and make them more aware of the laws and etiquette about service dogs. For more about Service Dogs NH, visit https://servicedogsnh.org/about/
A little more backstory about this book:
I never thought I would write a children’s book. I’ve written three business books so far and am currently working on another one, and, shamefully, I haven’t really advertised them and as I write this I just remembered I hadn’t even added the third book onto the sidebar on my website (what do they say about the cobbler’s children?). This book came about entirely by accident.
We have a couple of German Shepherds who are former guide dog trainees (we are former puppy raisers for a guide dog program in CT) that were released from their training program for medical reasons, and we ended up adopting them after they dropped out of training. Ily, on whom this book is based, is one of those pups.
About a month and a half ago, my husband and I were joking around about how much of a drama queen one of our dogs is when she goes to the local vet. A little backstory: she and my oldest granddaughter are best buddies. We thought it would make a funny story, and a fun family created gift for her to remember Ily by. The local veterinarian and vet techs all know her as “the drama queen,” and the whole thing originally started as a small project where we were maybe just going to order a Zazzle book for her when it was done. When we started showing it to friends and family, they said, “Why not put it online?” So here we are.
The images in the book come from photos my husband and I have taken not just over the past year, but over several years. Because of that, you’ll see some variation, images from when she was much younger and didn’t yet have gray on her muzzle, and more recent ones where she is, unfortunately, starting to look like the older dog she is today. We love them while they are with us, which is never long enough.
For transparency: AI was used as a supplement for a small number of images. The dog is always based on real photos. AI was used for some backgrounds when I didn’t have an ideal reference image, and for the few vet tech illustrations, all guided by real photo references.
I approach AI as I do any other tool, to be used thoughtfully, ethically, and respectfully, and not as a replacement for work I couldn’t do myself after over 20 years as a professional graphic designer. AI is a powerful tool, not a crutch, which, if you have ever been on one of my Zoom workshops, you’ve probably heard me say ad nauseum. While it can be a significant cost-saver for many, it also violates artists’ and creators’ intellectual property when misused. Much like Facebook, I have a love–hate relationship with it.
I also have to add a big thank you to our wonderful vet, Diane, who is also in this book (used with permission), with an image of her sitting on a bench and being enthusiastically licked by our furkid. One of my favorite photos as well! We’re very grateful to her for many years of terrific vet care over several generations of GSDs. Her vet’s office is also the basis of many of the original photos used.
What I found interesting about this project was that writing the rhymes for the book didn’t take long, and we were happy with the minor revisions. The image editing, however, took more than a month. It wasn’t just a matter of dropping a photo into Photoshop and applying a watercolor effect, each image required additional editing, and in some cases quite a lot of pixel-by-pixel work including a couple of other graphics editors, before I was satisfied. And I had to stop messing with some of the illustrations or I’d still be at it.
This book as mentioned prior, was not originally intended for sale, but because I put it on Amazon, I wanted some proceeds from this to go towards a good cause and because our pups were originally on the career track to become service dogs; I thought it would be a perfect way to give back.
I learned a lot from this project, particularly that formatting a children’s book with images differs greatly from formatting a text-based book with a few illustrations. Lessons learned, and if I ever decide to do another one, I’ll probably do a better job next time and will also do colored-pencil illustrations and scan them in instead of creating digital images. But who knows…………
We hope you enjoy.
