I write children’s books. I do this primarily because I am concerned about the content that children read. When I was growing I had heroes. My personal favorites came out of the comic books- Superman, the Silver Surfer. We moved around a lot. So instead of community based heroes I got mine from books. I fell hook line and sinker for tag lines- Truth, Justice, and the American Way. Still believe it and my books are an outgrowth of the belief that there is more to children’s literature than gaseous dogs and rude children. To some degree our children are a reflection of what we have created for them to absorb through television, books and teachers. If we provide them with junk we really can not expect them to become better in their values, their goals, their success in life than the examples we have provided.
It really is the goal of each able parent that their child do better economically and socially than we have done ourselves. And we want our children to be ‘better’ than we have been at upholding the values we have tried to communicate to them. Values like courage, hope, faith. Actions like telling the truth and fighting for justice.
It sounds silly but many of my values I learned from books and many of my heroes came from books. So I know that books can transmit many powerful and positives lessons to kids. Our goal is to have our children’s books inspire kids to become as much as they can be. It is our goal to help kids move from a feeling of helplessness in a fast paced world that seems out of control to a slower paced community of shared values where we can each make a difference to our neighbors and our friends. Hopefully those small changes can begin to shrink the overwhelming world we live in to a community where we can each make a difference through service to others. But, as the old saying goes- you can only give away what you have- so our books are about the invisible values- hope, optimism, love, service, self esteem, and faith- that add much of the meaning to life.
Steve Tiller
rightstuffkids.wordpress.com 