Describe your book’s character-building message.
Pretty Dolls is a story about Gracie—a purple-eyed, one-armed, spiky-haired doll—who’s won the heart and snuggly arms of a little girl named Tasha. But Emily-Nicole, the most beautiful and the haughtiest of the dolls, will have none of it. Little does Tasha know that when her bedroom lights go out, doll wars begin. Through Gracie’s kindness and generosity, Pretty Dolls addresses universal themes of jealousy, love, and friendship.
What inspired you to share that message with your readers?
I have been a public school teacher for about fifteen years and am a strong advocate of character education. Research shows that a child is bullied every seven minutes, starting in the primary and elementary years. Our greatest defense to bullying is to teach empathy, and the best way to begin to do that is to utilize quality children’s literature. By relating to fictional characters, such as Pretty Dolls’ Gracie, young children can learn about empathy, which is at the core of human social interaction.
Describe your target audience.
Although the book’s themes can be enjoyed and appreciated by anyone, my target audience is children in the primary and elementary grades, ages four to eight.
How would you like your message to impact them?
By empathizing with Gracie, children will learn what it is like to be a bully’s target. From there, they will learn that kindness, respect, and generosity are favorable, positive qualities to possess—as opposed to bullying someone because he or she is different or “looks funny.” The book’s underlying theme comes down to this: Be a Buddy – Not a Bully.
What have you learned about yourself through the publishing process?
After I published Pretty Dolls, a group of librarians and teachers encouraged me to market the book as an educational tool. It was then I realized I could help impact the classroom in a positive way by helping educators teach prosocial behaviors at the elementary level. I took some time off from my writing to develop an easy-to-use curriculum guide that could be downloaded for free from my Web site and used as a hands-on classroom resource. Since then, the book has been reviewed and endorsed by librarians and teachers across the country as an ideal classroom resource for teaching character education, prosocial skills, and anti-bullying strategies. Pretty Dolls has since won awards from the Pacific Northwest Writers Association and Reader Views as Best Children’s Picture Book of the Year. It is also recommended and endorsed by award-winning educational Web sites TeachingBooks.net and StoryCub.org.
What is your goal as a writer?
I would like to continue to reach out to kids with books that entertain them with characters that carry a message of hope and inspiration. Children, tweens, and teens are the ultimate emotional truth-tellers. They are my muses and my guiding light.
How will your book award help you achieve that goal?
Hopefully parents and educators will view the CBC Book Award as a continual endorsement for Pretty Dolls’ efforts to help children explore the importance of respect and fair treatment for everyone.
CBC Book Awards, Character Building Counts, www.CBCAwards.com, www.kimberlydana.com