Book for Krishna’s children

With this letter, I am addressing a well-wishing Vaishnavas who are willing to help another of my Krishna-conscious child welfare projects. I am preparing a book for children with nature stories that aim to awaken and direct children's attention to Krishna consciousness. The book will contain about 5-6 stories, for kindergarten, preschool, and early school-age children. I initially created these stories while teaching my children, and I can undoubtedly confirm that of all the stories during our homeschool my children loved them the most.

In these stories, I have tried to connect children's interest in nature, plants, and animals with Krishna as the Supreme source of it all. Naturally and gently, children get the message that everything and everyone is meant to please and satisfy Krishna. A child's experience of the world takes on a spiritual dimension when all beings and phenomena are placed in the service of Krishna. There are tons of nature stories for young children, beautiful and instructive, but none of them speaks about Krishna. This book would give young children a gentle, soothing, protective, and natural impression of Krishna consciousness appropriate for their developmental stage.

I wrote the stories as fairytales because this form of storytelling deeply impacts the mind of a young child. I gifted plants and animals with human qualities because this is how young children perceive them. Each story contains layered messages that are relevant to children of this age. A spring flower was afraid to go up on the earth, but it overcame the fear and as a reward became an altar decoration. The caterpillar was voracious and had to face the rejection of other insects, but she received a spiritual guide who helped her transform into a beautiful butterfly in Krishna's garden. Five sisters' snowflakes represent five senses, and the sixth represents a devotee with the right attitude that takes her back to Godhead. One of these stories I published on my spiritual storytelling blog Goloka Dreamland, and you can read it here: https://golokadreamland.com/winter-story-for-child...

I intend to publish the book on Amazon or Lulu, which I can do for free, but I need some financial help to prepare it for publishing. I need to pay an English translator and editor, an illustrator, and a person who would do design, layout, and prepress work. Unfortunately, we are not able to pay for it all. We live very simply on our small farm in Eastern Europe, producing our food and selling some of it, but it hardly covers our basic expenses.

I hope to finish all the work and publish the book by the end of the year. I will regularly update here on how preparation work develops. The book will have about 50 pages and 10-15 color illustrations. The quality of the illustrations is one of the most important items for a book like this. I want to hire someone who can richly evoke the world of children's imagination, and most of the cost would go to this service. In the photos, you can see the artwork of some of the devotee artists that I'm thinking about hiring. I'm hoping to get an opinion on stories from senior Vaishnavas, who are experts in the writing and pedagogy field.

If you find this project valuable and if you are in a position to help, I humbly beg you for a kind donation that would make it possible!

Yours in the service of Sri Guru and Sri Gauranga,

Teja Gaurangi dd