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The "Effie" Effect: Diversity, Kindness, & Empathy with Jennifer Morhaime

• Dori Durbin • Season 2 • Episode 9

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Listen to today's episode,  "The "Effie" Effect: Diversity, Kindness, & Empathy with Jennifer Morhaime" as Territory Manager, mama, and Children's Book Author Jennifer Morhaime joins Dori Durbin. Jennifer shares:

  • How Effie Was "Born"
  • Why a Hedgehog Character
  • Jennifer's STEM Book Applications 
  • Story Reading "Effie's Friendsgiving"
  • Holes in Literature
  • Being an Author
  • On Imposter Syndrome
  • How Her Books Benefit Her Own Kids
  • Why YOU Should Write Kids' Books
  • Next Books and Their Muses
  • Where to Find Jennifer & Effie

Did you love this episode? Discover more here:
 https://thepowerofkidsbooks.buzzsprout.com

More about Jennifer:
Jennifer has been writing since she was about 10 years old. It has always been a passion, an outlet for her anxiety and emotional discomfort, and a creative escape. The fear of being judged by putting herself out there held her back for many years. Releasing Effie Goes to School in 2021, and making a dream a reality is still surreal; but now that the door is open, Jennifer’s creative drive is opening up tenfold.
 
After the loss of her brother Bryan in 2019, Jennifer realized life is short and chose to face her fears and start living her dreams. She is supported by her loving husband and two beautiful boys. Along with her books, Jennifer works full time, teaches art in her sons class every month, and always has time for family and friends.  

I love reading to children and seeing their eyes light up as they make connections with the characters and storylines. 

Find Jennier's Book:
Http:/www.jmorhaimebooks.com/shop

Follow Jennifer:
http://www.jmorhaimebooks.com
  ---> Use code FREESHIP to get free shipping on all orders  until July 31st, 2023

http://www.instagram.com/effies_books
http://www.facebook.com/jmorhaimebooks
http://www.youtube.com/jmorhaimebooks

---> PARENTS: Want kids to participate in the Dino drawings Jennifer mentioned?
Email them here:  info@jmorhaimebooks.com

More about Dori Durbin:
Dori Durbin is a Christian wife, mom, author, illustrator, and a kids’ book coach who after experiencing a life-changing illness, quickly switched gears to follow her dream. She creates kids’ books to provide a fun and safe passageway for kids and parents to dig deeper and experience empowered lives. Dori also coaches non-fiction authors and aspiring authors to “kid-size” their content into informational and engaging kids’ books!
 
Buy Dori's Kids' Books:
https://www.amazon.com/stores/Dori-Durbin/author/B087BFC2KZ

Follow Dori
http://instagram.com/dori_durbin
http://www.doridurbin.com
http://www.facebook.com/dori_durbin

0:47 - Dori Durbin 

Hello and welcome to the power of kids', books, where we believe books are a catalyst to inspire and empower change. I'm your host, Dori  Durbin. Did you know that becoming a kids book author can be kind of scary? There's a lot of personal risk in putting your book, your ideas, and yourself out there in the public. But what if the risks were twice the effort were worth, see? What if the risk were worth twice?

 

1:18 - Dori Durbin 

Your effort and your book could help both kids and parents alike. Today's guest is a wife, mom, territory manager, and kids book author who overcame her fears, to write "Effie Goes to School" and she hasn't stopped since. So welcome. Jennifer Morhaime. 

1:59 - Jennifer Morhaime 

Thank you so much for having me.

2:01 - Dori Durbin 

Yes, thank you. I I love your Effi books, they're so cute, and I know we're gonna talk about Effie's friends giving later today, but just tell me a little bit about how you got started in the industry and what were some of the hardest things about getting started.

 

2:12 - Jennifer Morhaime 

Thank you. So I've been writing since I was about ten years old. It was a way for me to work through all of my anxieties and emotional discomfort. And so I would keep journal next my bed and kind just jot down notes of ideas and then would do poetry and short stories and back in two thousand eight I woke up in the of night with this idea about this pink uh this pink dress pink bow wearing hedgehog and effi goes to school kind of came to fruition from a from a dream It took me about ten years to kind of put it out there.

 

3:01 - Jennifer Morhaime 

I kind interviewed a bunch of illustrators and just didn't feel like it was the right time. And then twenty nineteen we lost my brother and he was an entrepreneur he had four or five businesses and so he was a dreamer and a risk taker and after processing through that grief and the emotional discomfort I felt like this was the And I need to make my dreams come true because life short and so let's just put it out there and see what happens.

3:33 - Jennifer Morhaime 

And it's kind of flourished.

 

3:34 - Dori Durbin 

That's great. It really has. I see Effi all over when I, when I go on Facebook or I feel like on Amazon, I see her quite bit too. You do.

 

3:46 - Jennifer Morhaime 

Yeah, so we do, yeah, the, the collection has grown in the two years. It's been kind of a whirlwind. So we have three books, a coloring book, a flush doll. It just kind of has blossomed into this amazing full brand and we've got more books coming, so.

 

4:04 - Dori Durbin 

I know you have kids. Are they old enough to know what's going on?

 

4:10 - Jennifer Morhaime 

they are, they inspire me, for some of the other books, you know, have kind pivoted off, and so there are six and three. The youngest one is obsessed with dinosaurs, so So we're actually working on a new series, it's all about dinosaurs coming out hopefully this fall. And then my other son is in elementary school and so it was like him going to school for the 1st time with kindergarten. Was kind what was the catalyst to release the 1st book into the market was like, you know, kids need that assurance that it's going to okay and that, you know, it's not, it's not scary to make new friends, learn new things.

 

4:55 - Jennifer Morhaime 

And so it was just a way to, to kind of help him through that transition from going from daycare to actual school and then his class in kindergarten. I was stapling packets about, but the life of a butterfly, which gave me the idea the field book to use that as the learning lesson because teachers can use that as a learning lesson with my book to show the life cycle of a and then going to the science center and actually seeing the butterflies in their natural foliage and all the different species.

5:32 - Jennifer Morhaime 

So it gives parents and teachers that learning element, but it's also, you know, their science and math relations, so you get your Stem. So they really wanted to incorporate things that kids learn in elementary school into the And then the colorful, bright characters draw in the younger audiences as well, because they're so excited about the different characters and the different animals and the diversity of everybody.

 

6:00 - Dori Durbin 

How did you come up with a hedgehog for your main character?

 

6:04 - Jennifer Morhaime 

Like I said it, it came to me in a dream one night. I just, I woke up and I was like, I have this vision of this little hedgehog with a pink bow and a pink dress on and And then I went back and forth with some of the illustrators that I interviewed and you know, they're like, you should do people. And I was like, well, I really want it to keep. I want to with animals because I want it to be a diversity inclusion book series and I don't want to have to have anybody offended by the different colors used for different people or the different, you know, eye shapes or nose or any of the stereotypes.

 

6:38 - Jennifer Morhaime 

And so I can kind wipe those away by using animals because every animal is different and, and they're all well loved so it's a way to kind of incorporate all of that together.

 

6:52 - Dori Durbin 

I love it. I, I wasn't sure, you know, a hedgehog is a unique choice because you think of, you know, like I have cats dogs, and I think a lot of illustrators do the fuzzy, fluffy animals, you know, and though a hedgehog is not fuzzy or fluffy, so I was just curious how that.

 

7:08 - Jennifer Morhaime 

Yes, I wanted her to be different. I wanted her to stand out and You know, there's a theme of kindness and friendship and in all of the books, but there's also, you know, there's conflict in each book and there's, you know, sharp points. So it kind of, you know, links back to her, her frills and her quills and I just really wanted to kind of encapsulate the fact that it's nobody's perfect. We all have, you know, we all have roses and thorns and We have to look at, you know, look at the, the good side of everything.

 

7:46 - Dori Durbin 

And the stem component, what what came to your mind? I know you said the butterfly process, but but why stem?

 

7:55 - Jennifer Morhaime 

So we have kind of instilled in our children that it's very important to always be learning and always be,

 

7:55 - Dori Durbin 

I'm curious.

 

8:01 - Jennifer Morhaime 

you know, expanding on what you know and And so like I work with them in the kitchen a lot because my other passion is cooking. And so, you know, we talk to them about, you know, a one cup and a quarter, cup and a half cup. And so I've actually incorporated recipes into the books so that you can kind of work on that with your kids at home. And teach them, you know, the different, how the different elements of cooking and how math kind of takes a role in everything in the field trip book, you know, Jesse, the elephant is an artist and she's, she's an artist throughout the whole series, but she's really not happy about going to the science museum because she'd rather go to the art museum.

 

8:45 - Jennifer Morhaime 

And so Effie's job in that book is to teach her that art is also science and that you can find beauty and You know, dinosaur fossils or You know, in a tide pool with an enemy and you know, starfish. And there's just a lot of elements of life that come to play. It doesn't have to just be from a textbook.

 

9:13 - Dori Durbin 

I love that. I think that's, it's such an important piece that, you know, parents can actually pretty easily instill if they think about it, but including it in a book is even more forethought of trying to figure out exactly where your story is gonna go and how you're gonna encompass that. Okay, so, so your recipes, is there a recipe in each book?

 

9:35 - Jennifer Morhaime 

When I wrote Effi Goes to School, I talk about Effie's mom making Herr cookies. At the end of the day. I did not include that recipe in the book because I had not kind of gotten to that point when I released it. But it, that recipe is actually in the coloring book and then I in the friends giving. Fi's mom makes a snack mix with Effi to take to all of her friends so that in case they forget their lunch or their snack on the field trip, they have a snack. So that recipe is in the coloring book and it's also in the book, but the recipes really kind of came to fruition in the Friends giving book.

 

10:13 - Jennifer Morhaime 

In the back of the book there's actually six recipes. And they're all diverse based on different holidays celebrated during the holiday season.

10:22 - Jennifer Morhaime 

So like you have lot K for Hanukkah and peppermint bark for Solstice and Christmas and but you have lunar dumplings or pot stickers for Lunar New Year. We have a date cookie for for the communities that you know celebrate Ramadan and Ed we have glebe for. For families that celebrate j wali. So we really tried to kind of mix it all together so that it's not just You know me coming up with fun after school snacks, but really incorporating that cultural element too.

 

11:01 - Dori Durbin 

That's awesome. I'm assuming you have all the measurements so parents can practice the measuring and the direction and yeah,

 

11:05 - Jennifer Morhaime 

Yes, yep, yep.

 

11:08 - Dori Durbin 

so your future books, are they gonna include recipes as well?

 

11:13 - Jennifer Morhaime 

They are so. Effie's summer vacation is at the printer right now. It will hopefully be here in July. And it is incorporating two summer recipes one is for a Sherbert punch, and one is for a Firecracker Parfet. So bringing in that 4th of July element, but also it will have layers, so the kids will have to really kind of measure like their ingredients to be exact, so you can see the layers as they make the dish.

 

11:45 - Dori Durbin 

Oh fun, I love that, that is awesome.

 

11:48 - Jennifer Morhaime 

Yes, I do sure.

 

11:50 - Dori Durbin 

So okay, you have friends giving right there,

 

11:52 - Jennifer Morhaime 

So I'm gonna read A from the page.

"Everybody has just sat down to their friends giving feast, so. Thank you all so much for coming to my 1st friend's giving. I'm hoping we can go around the table and share about our holidays and family traditions.

My mom made us a turkey and I made my favorite fall treat pumpkin bars. I also love decorating cookies for Christmas. So I wanted to share that tradition with you all too. Effy Gleams Thank you for inviting me. Effi. My family celebrates Hanukkah and Christmas, so I brought a minora to light candles. We light the candles for eight nights to represent the miracle of the Maccabee oil that lasted eight days instead of one. On Christmas Eve, we watch movies and string popcorn garland for our tree, although we eat more than we string.

 

12:45 - Jennifer Morhaime 

So thisgives you a little tastee of what the characters are doing.

They bring different elements of their different holidays And every, you know, there's a variety of different people. So there's Lunar New Year, Hanukkah, Kwanza. Wali Solstice ed Ramadan. We talk about them all and within the text you really get lessons of like what the pillars of Kwanza are and how to play trad all and it's just different. Different facts that the kids are, are enjoying the story, but they're really getting the facts as well.

 

13:24 - Dori Durbin 

I love that. I love having that incorporation. Then there's another opportunity for parents to be able to educate their kids on something completely different,

 

13:32 - Jennifer Morhaime 

Yes,

 

13:34 - Jennifer Morhaime 

yeah, So this one took me the most research because I really wanted to get it right. I really wanted to make sure that the animals that I assigned to those holidays weren't offensive to those cultures. I wanted to make sure the recipes were correct. Some of them were gifted to me by family friends that celebrate those holidays, so they, their family recipes that they shared with me and allowed me to use,

but I really wanted to get this one right because I really wanted to make kind of make an opus for our country. That's a melting pot of all these wonderful cultures. That is really a miss. In schools, we don't teach about the holidays, you know, most people know Christmas and Hanukkah, but you know, there's a lot more that are celebrated during that time of year.

 

14:16 - Dori Durbin 

Hey. I think that's great and you know, you bring up an interesting point, when you decide what your next book is gonna be. Is it based off of your family's experiences or is it based off of things that you see as far as literature holes in the children's lit world.

 

14:37 - Jennifer Morhaime 

It's a little bit of both. The summer vacation concept is actually, I actually merged two concepts that I wanted to include, but I actually had my childhood summer camp reached out to me and asked me if Effie's going to ever go to camp. And so because they'd love to kind of collaborate with me on how we could join. To make kids, you know, excited for camp and you know, going to different, you know, summer activities. And so I kind of use that idea. But I also wanted to incorporate step families.

 

15:11 - Jennifer Morhaime 

And so Effie is going to have a step brother and it's the 1st book. You're going to meet her dad because she lives with her mom, a single parent, and I wanted to kind of bringing those elements together, you know, one of the ideas came from outside and I think a lot of people have talked to me, you know, at different events, they'll come up to me. You know, my, my sister really likes this, are you going to incorporate it into the book? And so, and totally I, I listen to my audience, they listen to what they, you know, what they're looking for.

 

15:50 - Jennifer Morhaime 

But as I'm reading books to my kids constantly, I'm also looking for holes and you know, one of the things that we really focused on is the fonts that we use.

16:01 - Jennifer Morhaime 

My husband is dyslexic and a lot of children's books. The fonts are either on dark imagery so you can't read them at night when they're meant to be read at bedtime. So I didn't want any of my fonts to be hidden on dark pages. A lot of fonts have curls and, and like tails that don't, that aren't what's taught in school to the younger children. So when they look at a T that has a hook and they think it's a J because it looks like a J but backwards, you know, I wanted to make sure that wasn't a problem and so I, I take, you know, my own personal life, but also what, what my audience tells me.

 

16:38 - Dori Durbin 

That's great. I, I think that's something that, a lot of authors don't think about. They want the imagery there, but they don't think about the ease of reading it. Yeah, I know my very 1st book that I did. I had a font that I thought fit the page well and then I immediately started getting reviews back about how the font was too small and most of them were grandparents that were reading to their kids and yeah.

 

17:02 - Jennifer Morhaime 

Exactly. Yep. Yeah, I worked, I worked with us born books for, as a side job for about two years and that was my biggest complaint with their books is that they had amazing content, but it was really hard to read the books, especially in like bedtime lighting.

 

17:21 - Dori Durbin 

Yes, yes, and you would think too, like the bigger the book the better, but that's not always true either, just depending on, on how thick your book is and heavy and all those pieces too. So yeah, have you been able to do many classroom reads with your books?

 

17:37 - Jennifer Morhaime 

I've done a handful, yeah, I've, I've gone to a couple of different schools locally here I've done a Zoom school visit, which was really great.

 

18:45 - Dori Durbin 

Yay!

 

18:46 - Jennifer Morhaime 

I've had a couple of Pta fundraising events that I've done where I've gone in the evening to do literacy events. And then I'm actually this summer a beach community out here in Washington called Seabrook invited me to be an expert in residence for a week. So I'll be teaching five literacy classes and not just for children, I'll be doing all ages classes. So I'm very excited about doing that for a week as well.

 

19:13 - Dori Durbin 

That something you figured you'd do as an author?

 

19:16 - Jennifer Morhaime 

I never thought I was going to do that. No, you know, when I put Fi Goes to School out, it was like a bucket list. I, you know, can check this off my list that I've become a published author and And because of the response, it has, you know, grown so much that I'm now, you know, I go to schools and they're like, can I have your autographs? Like they treat me, they treat you like a celebrity. And I'm like, I'm just a mom who cares and wants to teach kids the right things that they should be learning.

 

20:41 - Dori Durbin 

Yes, let me ask you, this was your 1st book Carder to publish or your 2nd book Carder to publish?

 

20:53 - Jennifer Morhaime 

the 1st one because I had no idea what I was doing.

 

20:58 - Dori Durbin 

I think the impostor syndrome can grow a little bit more sometimes with the 2nd one because you feel like you have something to live up to on your 1st one, which was a, you didn't expect any of that fame, right? And then you come to your 2nd one, you're like, Oh, this one's gotta be better, what do I do?

 

21:16 - Jennifer Morhaime 

I feel like the writing has improved. So for me it was, you know, the concept in the writing hass improved so much by, you know, getting that confidence that I can do this and that, you know, putting yourself out there and being judged for your work like that. Fear I, I had gotten over that fear by putting the 1st book out, which was the biggest battle for me. And so, you know, feeling that confidence and, and wanting it to grow, I kind of got the bug and it was like, I just want to keep going.

 

21:43 - Jennifer Morhaime 

And then, you know, then you said in, you're like, financially I need to, you know, see where I can lie before I can, you know, keep going. So.

 

22:53 - Dori Durbin 

Now, going back to your 1st book, I know you said that there are some obstacles as far as fear goes. What was what were some of the biggest ones that you had to overcome?

 

23:04 - Jennifer Morhaime 

I have a severe anxiety I've had most, most of my life. I've hidden it by, you know, doing cheerleading and doing sports and, you know, but like my writing is where I kind of expressed it all and because no one could judge my writing if it was just in a book that was just for me. I was in a coaching program called Rubicon Results, and one of the things they teach there is that fear. Fear is holding you back from success, because you know the grass isn't always greener on the other side, but you never know until you get there if it is, and so by facing your fears and putting yourself out there You can see what, what your options are, you can see, you know, you know your successes and you can learn from your failures because we all fail.

 

23:56 - Jennifer Morhaime 

I mean even, even today, like, you know, I, I know that there's, you know, grammar and, you know, grammatical errors. Are to typos in the books because they're not perfect. You can edit them, you know, 20 million times and there will still be a missing comma or, you know, spell check didn't catch, you know, a spelling. And so you just ask for grace and you just tell people, you know, I'm sorry, you know, sorry for what, what was in the past, but let's, you know, look to the future.

 

24:26 - Dori Durbin 

That's great advice. I think that's something too, that I think by overcoming what you did, your kids obviously are going to pick up on that. They're going to see that there's, there's risk, but there's a lot of reward and growth in that risk.

 

24:40 - Jennifer Morhaime 

And my older son I feel like has done that, like he, he was very. Shy and very, he had no confidence in himself, like even like trying new things like at home, like he just, it took forever. And now seeing me, you know, continue to grow like we in the last two years with me doing all of this, he has grown and he has, you know, gotten more confident. He's, you know, he's gone into sports now and he's flourishing and so it's definitely helping him see that it's okay to put yourself out there.

25:13 - Dori Durbin 

That's awesome.

 

25:13 - Jennifer Morhaime 

Today is a spirit day at school.

 

25:14 - Dori Durbin 

They've got to be really proud of their mom,

 

25:15 - Jennifer Morhaime 

we have to wear an animal and my son is actually wearing a Effy Hedgehog T shirt as his animal today.

 

25:25 - Dori Durbin 

Oh, perfect, that's awesome, that is awesome. Well, excuse me, so when you, I think about people who are considering writing kids', books, what would be like a piece of advice as to why you think that they should pursue it?

 

25:45 - Jennifer Morhaime 

There are so many opportunities out there, you know. Indep, The independent author movement has grown leaps and bounds even in the last two years that I've been a part of it. If you have a dream about writing a book, do it. I would recommend looking on. The Amazon world of topics and seeing if you can find a hole or seeing if you have a niche market. You know, there's, you know, there's very few books about foster parenting and very few books about autism. And those are things that are, are growing in this environment. There's, you know, inclusion and diversity. That was a big thing for me. There was not enough of it in the, in the market and it's not taught in schools well enough. So you know, if you have that dream, go for it.

 

26:34 - Jennifer Morhaime 

You know, we've learned with the pandemic the last couple years that life is short. So my advice is the same as Nike, just do it.

 

26:44 - Dori Durbin 

That's good advice. I know you have a book coming out in July. Do you have any other ones coming up soon after that?

 

27:56 - Jennifer Morhaime 

AI Summers vacation is gonna come out this summer. I'm fingers cross. Hopefully it'll be here by July, but you never know what the delays in printing will be. And then I am working. My illustrator is currently working on the 1st dinosaur book and these books are going to be for the zero to five age range. Their rhyming books, and they're inspired by my son and his adventures with his dinosaurs. He really believes that his toys are real, and so he creates these amazing adventures with them.

 

28:30 - Jennifer Morhaime 

And I wanted to be able to share those adventures with everyone and and Dinosaurs had become such an iconic play space for both girls and boys, and so I wanted to incorporate that. But I'm also incorporating children's drawings into the book. So if any of your listeners want to submit a drawing that their children have drawn of them with a dinosaur, it's going to go on the inside covers of all the different books. A collage of these drawings.

 

29:01 - Dori Durbin 

Cute, cute. Well, and is there, do they just send it to your email or how? How would you like it?

 

30:07 - Jennifer Morhaime 

Yeah, so they can send it to Info at J mohi Books. Com. I will spell that because my last name is is hard to spell that it's j m o r h a I m e b o o k s dot com so info at ja mohi books dot com they can send those images to me yep you can buy them on my website at j moore him books dot com or effs books dot com uh we also just added a Facebook shop so you can now buy them through my Facebook page uh j moor uh Jay mohi books is my author page and um they're also on barnes and noble and Walmart dot com and I have a couple of local retail bookshops in washington that they are available as well.

 

31:27 - Dori Durbin 

Yes. And then, where they can find your books. I know on Amazon, but are there other Pl? Oh, well, I'm sure our listeners will be looking for the hedgehog in the pink dress and pink bow.

 

32:10 - Jennifer Morhaime 

Excellent. She's she's very lovable.

 

32:14 - Dori Durbin 

She is really cute. She does not look like she would wound you in any way so.

 

32:19 - Jennifer Morhaime 

Yes, yes, that's the misnomer. Hedgehogs are not uh, porcupines, and they are not.

 

32:25 - Dori Durbin 

Yes.

 

33:25 - Jennifer Morhaime 

they do not throw their quills like porcupines they are much more gentle giants. Thank you.

 

33:31 - Dori Durbin 

They're adorable. Well, your books are adorable in the same way. Can't wait to see the dinosaur books and yeah,

 

33:37 - Jennifer Morhaime 

Thank you,  thank much having me.

 

343:39 - Dori Durbin 

THANK YOU FOR  your time today. Jennifer, We appreciate that.

 

34:43 - Jennifer Morhaime 

Thank you, and thank you to your audience as well for listening.

 

34:53 - Dori Durbin 

Okay. Thank you,

 

34:56 - Jennifer Morhaime 

Thank you,

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