This video of me reading Saturday Surprise, my first children’s storybook, was recorded in September of 2017, shortly after Hurricane Harvey hit the gulf coast, causing massive flooding in the Greater Houston area. Along with many others, I read my book and posted it as part of the “Hurricane Harvey Book Club” so that children displaced from their homes could still enjoy story time. And now, I’m sharing it with you!

I was inspired to write Saturday Surprise (and Playtime Pickle, and the storybooks to follow), by the challenging behavior of my (ahem!) spirited child and the parenting approach that paved a better way forward for our entire family. Here was my idea: What if you could read a story to your children and learn new parenting strategies at the same time? And that was the birth of Everyday Miracles: A Storybook Series Based on the Nurtured Heart Approach®. Saturday Surprise is the first installment in the series, followed by Playtime Pickle, with two books still to come.

Saturday Surprise and Playtime Pickle are both available on Amazon.

I first discovered Nurtured Heart Approach in 2012 when my then four-year-old’s behavior was in a troubling downward spiral. I began reading Transforming the Difficult Child: The Nurtured Heart Approach by founder Howard Glasser, and noticed an immediate change in my son after only one meeting with a Nurtured Heart Approach trainer. I knew just moments into the session that I needed to learn this approach in order to help my son and to change the dynamic in our home…and I did! My husband and I both learned the approach, and I went on to become a Nurtured Heart Approach trainer, writing storybooks along the way.

My motivation for writing Saturday Surprise and the books that follow in the series comes from personal experience with my incredibly intense child and a desire to help other parents and professionals who live and work with kids, especially the “difficult” ones. These books are a unique resource for parents, grandparents, teachers, therapists, and anyone who lives or works with children and youth.

I hope you enjoy the video! Please check out my author page on Amazon, too!