Why I Just Wrote My First Children’s Book

I only write books I want to read.

In the case of my most recent book, What to do When Someone Makes Fun of Your Shoes, I wrote the book I wanted to read to my son.

Reading is a thrice-a-day (at least) routine for our family. We read to our son before bed, but also during diaper changes, in the car, at the beach, wherever. Kid loves books, just like his old man. Granted, at the moment, he opts to “read” them upside down. Maybe he’ll look at the words one day.

Until then, mom and dad are reading aloud.

I knew I wanted to write a children’s book the moment I read Goodnight Moon for the first time as a comprehending adult and was left in legitimate wonder why anybody, much less millions of people, spent good, hard American dollars and not only read it regularly but then took it a step further and passed it down from generation to generation.

That book?

My wife, Delaney, laughed at my incredulity. Then laughed some more.

You should just write your own.

OK then.

I didn’t want to just write something like Goodnight Moon, with a rhyme but ultimately meaningless message. I wanted something that rhymed, sure, because I find, as a parent, reading something to your kid that doesn’t hold a rhythm is an exercise in parental waterboarding. Go ahead and read something like My Goodnight Book — apparently a classic — and bless your little heart if you must do it on a nightly basis.

But I also wanted a book that held an inherently good message, a little nugget for my son — and his parents — to take away. I loved the lesson-rhyme combo package delivered by Pout Pout Fish, Giraffes Don’t Dance, and Little Blue Truck, among others, all books that have been read or rapped hundreds of times to my son. Anything by Dr. Seuss is the holy grail of children’s literature.

On a walk one day, the book wrote itself in my head, as do most of the stories I write.

What did I want to teach my son? A lesson espoused by many of the stoics I had been reading: Control what you can control. Worry not about the opinions of others, but only what remains in your control: how you act, how you treat others, your own character.

In 15 minutes, What to do When Someone Makes Fun of Your Shoes was born, a quick tale of a boy who goes to school rocking his new shoes and hat but is made fun of by the local bully. This sends him into a tailspin until his mother sees what happened and channels her own Marcus Aurelius, telling her son that he cannot control whether or not Bert the Bully likes his shoes or not, so he shouldn’t much worry about it.

But what can he control? How he treats his friends and, just as important, those who are not yet his friends. How he treats his teachers. How he lives his own life.

Those were the lessons I wanted to teach my son, lessons I hadn’t yet come across in a children’s book, lessons that I try to remind myself of every single day.

Now I can, as What to do When Someone Makes Fun of Your Shoes is a regular read for our little family.

I hope that, soon, it is the same for yours.