Being creative director and illustrator for my mom’s book

Over the past several months I have been working on my mom’s book as Creative director and illustrator. I am thrilled to announce that Growing Whole Children in the Garden: Seasonal Explorations from Peregrine School is now available on our website and on Amazon! We chose to self publish this book because we realized it was so timely and felt urgency to serve parents, kids and teachers bereft during the pandemic. On a deeper level, we felt urgency to publish the book as a way to address climate change and how we live and learn in response to the Anthropocine.

Growing Whole Children in The Garden is a book of tools, practices and reflections developed by Lorie Hammond with her community over 50 years of teaching nursery school kids to graduate students and now as the director of Peregrine School, a progressive school in Davis, CA. The book is about understanding big ideas through concrete experience of nature, culture and place.

It has been amazing and challenging to work on such a big project with my own mom. It was a unique opportunity to stay connected during the pandemic with our weekly zoom meetings and many calls. I already knew my mom was amazing, and now I am even more grateful to be raised by a this creative powerhouse. It has been a privilege to help her shape her ideas into a piece that is accessible for parents, teachers and those who interact with children of all ages.