Ginger and Zeus
Meet Ginger and Zeus!
My latest project is a early reading book based on the two dogs that had a lot of influence in my life. Ginger was my baby, and Zeus was my brother. Two pups with completely different personalities. Ginger, a Chihuahua that was a firecracker, thought she was 20 feet tall and owned the world like the princess she was. Zeus, the Great Dane, was laid back, and loved naps and food. My nieces are learning to read and so I wondered if I could make something that could help them on their journey.
My mind led back to Ginger and Zeus.
Both are no longer with us, so I wanted to look back on photos. I realized that I had lost a lot of old photos and videos I had. All through different means that culminated in the same result; old camera misplaced, folders lost in a computer swap, new phone didn’t use SD cards, old photo albums accidentally kept in a warm spot and allowed mold to grow. Devastated once I realized that I lost the majority of my photos, I appealed to my family, who had also realized they had same outcome. No one had any photos.
At that point, I had one thought. I need to do something to honor them. I may not have many photos, but I’m an artist and can make something to keep their story alive. Thus, this series was born. The first book is a simple introduction. A simple poem I made that purposefully uses easier words for kids learning to read. Also, I found dyslexic friendly font (OpenDyslexic) to add a fun look, and adds a weighted base to the font to help kids identify letters better, whether they need that extra help or not.
More books are coming soon, and being a true to my artist title, I’m making these books myself. Entirely “self-publishing” to the extreme for now, since it’s my passion project that means a lot to me. Which means I literally wrote, illustrated, and now print and bind every book I sell.
If you’d like a copy for yourself, you can click the links below. The digital book on Google is coming after approval, and it will be on Apple books as soon as I get past the sign-up glitch I found that keeps linking me back to the log in page.
Wanna see the real Ginger and Zeus? Here’s the few photos i’ve managed to find. Remember to save your photos in multiple ways and in multiple places. Learn from my mistakes.
