Published in July 2022
The story of ZZ’s Little Adventure
A whimsical illustrated children’s book that offers new perspectives on feeling small: ZZ’s Little Adventure travels with a child, ZZ, as she explores what small really means among everyday wild creatures and a little fairy dust. Readers will find memorable animal personalities, beautiful illustrations, and a journey of connection, perspective, and the possibilities of big imaginations.
Illustrated by Kim Freeman, Written by Rebecca O’Neil
Click on the photos below for an enlarged view.
Thank you Goodreads!
ZZ’s Little Adventure has an entry online at Goodreads, here >>
Kim’s Story
Illustrating a children's book was a bucket list item for me.
Challenged by a lack of formal art training and a lack of children, I am grateful to be friends with Rebecca who wrote this beautiful story that was so fun to translate from words to pictures.
I like the stories of William Steig. He wrote Amos and Boris, Brave Irene, Sylvester and the Magic Pebble, and so many other treasures. In these books his characters — children, animals — face truly daunting and life threatening challenges (if you count being turned into a rock). In his books, he speaks to the emotional truth of difficult situations in a way children recognize and can engage with, while keeping the story moving along, using such elegant and real language choices. They are a good length with loads of pictures.
Kim and I love this story of perspective, the extraordinary fact of small creatures. And we ourselves have laid down under the bushes and enjoyed the view! There was a large feature in a magazine on a photographer who had hit on this looking-from-the-ground up kind of snap, and we were thrilled! I wish I could find it to share here.
Inspiration for the Story
A similar Dutch story:
Erik and the small book of insects
In telling this story to our friends Mariah and Lau, I learned that there is a Dutch book written in the 1940s that schoolchildren must read in the Netherlands, called Erik of het klein insectenboek (Erik and the Small Book of Insects). In the story, a child journeys through the land of caterpillars and bumblebees, though from what I can tell the story has more battles and gruesome reality. It is out of print and certainly not available in English, so I ordered an old copy from Chapter1, an independent rare bookseller, in Johannesburg South Africa (which of course has a large stock of Dutch books). Mariah has promised to translate it for me.
