With my first children's book,
Little Children We Are, published, this is my second children's book inspired by a valentine date with a college girlfriend after going back to my dorm room. Originally, the title was
The Little Rose. I later rented from a young couple born to them a little girl named
Carrie Rose who would call me Uncle Lenny. I decided to add a little girl's name, Carrie, and the story then became a story of Carrie having her mother tell her the story of
The Little Rose. Hence, the title
Carrie and the Little Rose.I sat on the manuscript for years, thinking that it may be just a writing for children until I saw artwork. After seeing artwork from the illustrator, Beth Clingan, who her and her now husband, Mark, were college best friends to me. I decided to commission her to illustrate as a book in colored pencil to which she proved it excellently.Although this book is about a little girl and a rose, it is for girls and boys as the moral of the book is
to be the best person you were purposed to be, even if everyone doesn't seem to notice.