By Monique
Photo credit: Ivy Kwong
As adults, we become trained to believe that children’s books are only for kids. But here’s a children’s book that adults will want to read as much, if not more, than the target audience.
Ivy Kwong is a psychotherapist specializing in healing codependency as well as a coach for self-healers, the founder of Bare Ivy and writer of her Medium page. As a psychotherapist who helps clients address and heal their inner child, Kwong’s upcoming children’s book, The Little Girl, The Ocean and The Moon, will definitely help the child and the inner child alike become at peace with acknowledging your personal desires. As Kwong herself writes in her Kickstarter bio, “I hope and [have] faith that somehow, this book will reach those who need to hear its message: To reconnect with your childhood dreams, wonder, curiosity, creativity, and play. And to remember that it is never too late to give yourself now what you needed most then.”
“The Little Girl, The Ocean, and The Moon is for everyone, both children and adults, AND it is especially for little girls and big, grown-up girls who are sometimes taught to stay small and quiet, to put everyone else’s needs first, and to not be too much, want too much, or dream too much,” she wrote. “Because you are not too much. You are powerful, you are worthy, you are deserving, and you are enough.”
“…This book is for anyone who may have lost any part of themselves or their dreams at any point along the way,” she continued. “This book is for you, to help you remember to honor all of who you are. Because you deserve to take up space. Because your voice deserves to be heard. Because your needs deserve to be met, and your dreams deserve to be remembered and recognized.”
While the book will reach anyone regardless of ethnicity, the book also contains send-ups to Asian-American readers who will identify with the main character.
“This book is for everyone of every background, culture, ethnicity, and nationality, AND I wrote it holding Little Ivy and all little Asian and Asian-American girls close in my heart because sometimes it was hard being the little kid eating shrimp chips and chicken feet and Asian food that smelled and looked different in elementary school, and because sometimes it was hard not seeing anyone who looked like me in the children’s books I read growing up,” she wrote. “I included special details in the illustrations, like a bag of shrimp chips that the little girl packs in her backpack as she prepares to meet her elementary school friend – you can have fun looking for them and a few other ‘Asian Easter eggs’ that are hidden throughout this book!”
Thankfully, the book has already been fully funded before its October 17 deadline. But you can still support with your donations at Kwong’s Kickstarter page.
Julian 