‘Relatable to all children’: Moms from Carroll County and Virginia co-author book to fight bedtime blues

A pair of moms want to make bedtime fun for parents and children with their new book, “Oakley and Ivan and the All-Nighter,” and hope to provide a new routine for children during the coronavirus pandemic.

Amanda Lee, a Carroll County native and resident, and co-author Shante Willis, a Virginia resident, say their new book is a bedtime experience for children, with a song and dance designed to be a part of a daily bed time routine.

“We just wanted to change the way that bedtime is structured,” Willis said. “We wanted to come up with something that’s a little bit more fun for kids, that makes them look forward to bedtime and we knew that other parents had to be having the same struggles each of us dealt with.”

The story in the rhyming picture book is about a young boy named Ivan, who makes a wish to stay up all night when a magical owl shows up to take him on journey where he ultimately learns that he needs sleep. The story also includes a plot twist and a song and dance for children to follow along with.

Lee and Willis say they came up with the idea of a story that includes a song and dance routine while brainstorming ways to make bedtime a more pleasant experience for their three respective children. The two met in law school and have supported each other through their careers and burgeoning family lives. While their children were young, both women said they struggled with balancing a career and family life and would lean on each other for support.

“We were talking about our struggles and things that we go through parenting and we just kind of said, well, let’s come up with something. It’s almost like our life experiences with our children served as the catalyst for the characters to be created,” Willis said.

The book has been years in the making, but the authors were motivated by the pandemic to get the story out to share with others.

“We sat back down actually on March 1 before the pandemic started and we didn’t know what was about to start and we met up and decided to maybe start thinking about doing this and then boom, the pandemic hit,” Lee said. “And we thought, this is the perfect time ... we have to release it. And we FaceTimed all of the time throughout this whole year to get this done.”

The authors say they created the characters to be relatable and reflective of diversity.

“What was really important is that we created our main character to be relatable to all children and we also wanted to give Black and brown children a lead character that looks like them, so that’s how Ivan came about,” Lee said.

The book is published by AuthorHouse, a hybrid self publishing company, and is illustrated by Kaycie Day.

A website, OakleyandIvan.com, has been set up for children to participate in interactive activities and the authors encourage parents to visit the book’s social media pages to share their experiences.

“We definitely want the parents to know that the the Instagram and the Facebook page are truly for our parent community. We’ve met a lot of great moms and dads and teachers and aunties through our Instagram and our social media pages.,” Willis said.

Willis says her favorite part of the experience so far has been watching the videos parents have been sharing of their children reading the book.

“One was just incredibly cute, the little girl was reading the book for the first time, and when she got to the song, she sang it and then she just made this comment after singing, ‘like, Oh, my God, that was my favorite part,’” she said. “So seeing that in the video just really kind of touched my heart.”