With my first children’s book, Little Children We Are, published, this is my second children’s book inspired by a valentine date with a college girlfriend after going back to my dorm room. Originally, the title was The Little Rose. I later rented from a young couple born to them a little girl named Carrie Rose who would call me Uncle Lenny. I decided to add a little girl’s name, Carrie, and the story then became a story of Carrie having her mother tell her the story of The Little Rose. Hence, the title Carrie and the Little Rose.

I sat on the manuscript for years, thinking that it may be just a writing for children until I saw artwork. After seeing artwork from the illustrator, Beth Clingan, who her and her now husband, Mark, were college best friends to me. I decided to commission her to illustrate as a book in colored pencil to which she proved it excellently.

Although this book is about a little girl and a rose, it is for girls and boys as the moral of the book is to be the best person you were purposed to be, even if everyone doesn’t seem to notice.