My three nieces — having a princess tea party, no doubt — were the initial inspiration for the lullaby.
I wanted to create something sweet and playful for bedtime, and incorporate values and reminders that I believed would help them have happy, successful days.
Each of these girls have strong, unique personalities, and each is a “princess” in their own way, so we played with that idea as we developed the characters for the story.
I toyed with the idea of a children’s book for one year, before drafting my first storyboard.
The initial storyboard included 3 princesses — one for each of my nieces. However, in a world graced with princesses of all shapes, colors and sizes, we decided to extend our team of princesses to 5, in hopes of giving princesses of all cultural backgrounds and ethnicities a character with which to identify.
With a storyboard in hand, I began trialing different illustrators until I was introduced to Patricia. I connected with her work immediately, and was thrilled when she agreed to the project.
Here is one of her initial sketches for the book cover. How cool!
Patricia remains the hero of the project!
She brought thoughtful detail to each illustration of the storyboard, and dreamed up many of the gems throughout — the dragon, the panda, the stars, etc.
It was a joy to work together, and if we have any success with our initial release, we have high hopes to work together again!