In the 27-page book, Reed, 57, a 1983 Badin High School graduate, takes readers on a journey that shows the damage that can be done when groups work against each other instead of in harmony. Each group holds signs that read: “You’re wrong. We’re right.”
Eventually, everyone in the book shifts their priorities, works together for a common goal and builds a bridge over the gap in their differences.
“Maybe the most important thing I want to say with this story is to give full credit and appreciation to all children, because, like the two littlest ones in the story, they are the real experts at looking past differences and making connections purely for the sake of spreading fun and happiness,” Reed said while sitting in her Hamilton home. “I feel that the innocence and wisdom of children is really our greatest treasure on earth. And it so often goes unacknowledged.”
Ironically, Reed said, the children’s book is receiving rave reviews from adults who find “hope and inspiration” in its deeper meaning.
She’s been an avid reader and keen appreciator of children’s picture books since first checking out a tiny copy of The Tale of Tom Kitten when she was 5 at Lane Library in Hamilton. After high school, she worked as a graphic artist, musician, pediatric nurse and tailor whose home business was snagged by COVID-19.
Now that her life has “slowed down,” Reed has found time to devote to writing and illustrating her book, a process that began in the summer of 2021.
She believes the book could be adapted into a short musical or classroom skits. It also could be used in the educational field and read as a bedtime story, which she called “priceless time” spent between a child and the reader.
One of the meanings of the book, she said, is the benefit of “laying our differences aside and creating more happiness in the world.”
HOW TO ORDER
WHAT: “The Boogies and the Woogies”
HOW MUCH: $12.95
ORDER: The Boogies and the Woogies is available in softcover and ebook on www.amazon.com and www.barnesandnoble.com or by emailing the author at mariannereed64@yahoo.com.
About the Author
