Presenting Grandpa Fix-It

About two months ago, I had the great fortune of interviewing make-up artist extraordinaire Bobbi Brown and her father Joe who had recently published a children's book.  What struck me about our interview was how it hit so close to home.  You see, Bobbi shared the story of how her dad used to tell her family a story that was passed on from generation to generation.  On her dad's 70th birthday, Bobbi gave him the ultimate surprise.  She took him into a Scholastic book store and presented him with a copy of his own book.  

After Bobbi shared that anecdote with me, it completely struck a chord because my dad loves to write children's stories as well and a few years back, he shared them with me in the hopes I'd find a way to get them published.  But the road to becoming a published children's author is not that easy - especially if you can't illustrate your own stories.  And so, I let the stories sit on my laptop until Bobbi and her father shared their story with me.  Since my own dad was going to be celebrating his 70th birthday this year, I took our conversation as a sign that it was time to get moving.  And so, I reached out to Ann Pilicer, an incredibly talented illustrator who I had met after reconnecting with her husband on Facebook who attended junior high school with me more than two decades ago.  

After sending Ann my dad's stories along with tons of photos of my father, mom and kids, she got to work.  Every day, Ann would send me another incredible image that she had created and within a matter of two weeks, all the photos were completed.  Next, I reached out to the publisher of my book, Julie Trelstad at Plain White Press who received the images from Ann and positioned them graphically within the story.  Next, since I was publishing my father's story on my own, I created a Role Mommy imprint and assigned the book two ISBN codes so that it could available at libraries and book stores! 

Within a matter of one week, we managed to publish two hard cover copies of the book which Julie sent to my parents via Fed-ex and we instructed my dad not to open the package under any circumstances.  Once we arrived in Florida, my mom invited our relatives and friends over for a mini birthday celebration and we were all thrilled to see dad's reaction when we presented him with his very own copy of Grandpa Fix-It.  Take a look and see for yourself!  

All in all, I have to say, thanks to Bobbi Brown and her dad, I was able to create a birthday gift for my father that he and our family will cherish for decades to come!