All Kids Are Artists
Titled “Courage Takes Practice,” Amy has written a storybook to her daughter about making art and overcoming bullies.
Based on Amy’s own childhood, she wrote a book about a creative kid who gets bullied in a very specific way that isn’t talked about a lot in children’s books: only being acknowledged when a child is needed but invisible to the world when they are not. For Amy, this has also fed into the destructive notion that you are only worth anything if you are producing something.
ALL children should know they have value for simply being and to learn how to stand up for themselves when they feel they are being used.
Color Theory
Since the main character is an artist and their artistic skill is why they are “needed” periodically, “Courage Takes Practice” takes on these bullying challenges while also tapping into color theory. There are tons of children’s book about color, but in this book, color will assist in expressing the emotions the main character is feeling (and hopefully readers as well) throughout the story.
The illustrations are made with traditional materials, acrylics, pencil and pen. The way color is used in the book, each spread will use specific color palettes that emote either “happy/hopeful,” (using yellows and greens) “sad,” (blues) and “angry,” (reds) the main emotions confronted in the story.
The hope in coloring the book this way is for those young artists who read it learn how colors help them express themselves.
