Dr. Michelle Edwards, a professor at Owensboro Community and Technical College, has authored her first children’s book, A Bunny Tale. It follows a little girl, Ruby Ann, as she attempts to find her way in the world and is guided by her parents throughout the journey.
Ruby Ann enjoys playing with her toys as a young child might, but there is one thing she doesn’t like to do: clean her room. One day, she decides to become a bunny rabbit because, after all, bunnies never need to clean their rooms.
According to Edwards, the book follows Ruby Ann as she learns that while she can’t actually become a bunny, she can still be what she wants to be and she won’t have to change to accomplish that.
“It’s okay to be who you are. It’s good to be who you are. You don’t have to change. You don’t have to want to be something or someone else. You just be who you’re created to be and you’ll flourish,” Edwards said.
As a professor of early childhood education, Edwards has a passion for teaching children the ability to read. So she aimed to make a book that was interesting enough for children and that taught them a message.
“I think that if you can foster a child’s desire to read, then they can succeed in any area of their life,” she said. “So if you can put together interesting little books for him to read, then they’ll be drawn into the storyline and they’ll want to read.”
Edwards has been working on this book for several years and went through rewrites. She found the illustrator — 16-year-old Claire Rousch — not too long ago on Instagram. Edwards sent Rousch a page and asked her to draw whatever she saw.
“The first one she did was the little girl smiling and showing every tooth in her head. … [She sent it back] and I thought ‘Wow. She gets it. She’s seen what I see,’” Edwards said.
To get the book published fulfills a desire Edwards has had for many years, but she’s not done yet as she already has more books that she’s working on — and they cover many different areas of life.
To purchase A Bunny Tale, find it on Amazon here.
