My debut kids book “The Place a Tree Should Be” is about what makes a tree a tree - if it’s where it is or maybe how it got there? While it’s easy to see how we are different from others that makes it harder to see what makes us the same.

The Place a Tree Should Be is about how we handle a world that isn’t always simple. How do we care and understand the world around us and our place in it? With curiosity or judgement? Asking or assuming?

The idea came from my time working in a group home in Colorado, shelters in Michigan, and in foster care in California. I wanted to write a book that didn’t target the kids who needed it - those who’ve had hard lives - as they’ve lost the simplicity of being a kid and face challenges others don’t. So rather than write a book at them I wanted to write a book for them. Writing it for them - not targeting them - also meant writing it for all kids so when it’s read to a classroom every child can connect with different characters along the way and it doesn’t single out people but draws them into characters that give words to how they feel rather than tell them how to act.

All this is to bring in aspects of developmental and social psychology into easy to digest stories that make the world a kinder place for us all to live in.