Hard to believe it, but Mr Tim Zak has officially written, illustrated, and now published 11 children's picture books. Looking back only a few months, I still can not believe many of these cute animals that have been jumping around in my head are being read by kids all over the world. I still pinch myself when I see kids books sales coming in from France, China, Germany, and Australia. The reaction around the world is the same, first the parents tell me how much their little ones love these illustrated baby animals, then they tell me that they are bout to snuggle up and read it for the 100th time this month. Who knows, maybe someday one of these characters in my children's books will make it to the big screen. Disney, are you listening?
The subject for my latest classic kids book is Drake the duck who has bad luck! I got the inspiration for little Drake when I remembered an incident that happened to me in grade school. There was this one little kid who had the worst possible luck. He would get hurt playing basketball, he would fall off the school bus, he even got hit with a stick during his birthday party as kids were trying to smash open a pinata. I still remember it like yesterday, he was convinced he had bad luck, so, he had bad luck. He reinforced that belief into his subconscious, and it didn't help that everyone within ear shot would remind him that he was bad luck to be around. I remember feeling that he must not like having that bad luck, but he always seems to muscle through it and just wear it like a badge of honor. So the idea for my next rhyming kids book was born, with a little twist for creativity.
So with all my children's books online, I try to give those little ones a positive life lesson. I try to teach them that we are all different, and even if you are not like the rest of your group, that is still fine. With Drake, this little duck simply had the worst luck. His friends knew it, his parents knew it, and Drake knew it. However, when I am writing children's books, I always look for that twist that will spark a little fire inside all of the kids around the world. With Drake, his bad luck actually put him in a very unique situation where he would save the day. Like many popular nursery rhymes, the stories are not scary, they are not judgemental, they are designed to just entertain and maybe bring a cute little smile to those future generations.