Angie Lucas
Angie Lucas
Children's Author / Freelance Writer / Memory Keeper
 
 

 Reader, Writer, kidlit Author.

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a story of healing & hope

 
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AVAILABLE NOW AT YOUR FAVORITE BOOKSELLER

My Big, Dumb, Invisible Dragon is a story for children dealing with loss—or for those who need help relating to a grieving friend. Although it deals with a heavy topic, this book employs relatable characters, a light tone, touches of humor, and an overarching message of hope.

 

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Featured
Listen to My Book, Start to Finish
Listen to My Book, Start to Finish
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5 Daily Practices that Helped Me Thrive in a Challenging Year
5 Daily Practices that Helped Me Thrive in a Challenging Year
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The Story: How I Got My Book Contract
The Story: How I Got My Book Contract
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Picture Books Are For Everyone
Picture Books Are For Everyone
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From the Blog

From the Blog
Journey of a Reluctant Reader
Journey of a Reluctant Reader
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Who is This Book For?
Who is This Book For?
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Happy Book Birthday to Me!
Happy Book Birthday to Me!
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Listen to My Book, Start to Finish
Listen to My Book, Start to Finish
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Publisher's Weekly Weighs In
Publisher's Weekly Weighs In
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Kirkus Review: "Both Sensitive & Sensible"
Kirkus Review: "Both Sensitive & Sensible"
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Reading Roundup 2: More Life Lessons from 2018
Reading Roundup 2: More Life Lessons from 2018
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Reading Roundup: Life Lessons from 2018
Reading Roundup: Life Lessons from 2018
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5 Daily Practices that Helped Me Thrive in a Challenging Year
5 Daily Practices that Helped Me Thrive in a Challenging Year
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Avoiding the Christmas Apostrophe Catastrophe
Avoiding the Christmas Apostrophe Catastrophe
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Sharing Time

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It’s well established that reading aloud to children is important for cognitive development, language acquisition, and even parental bonding. It’s also an important step in helping children become independent readers and lifelong learners, especially in a technology saturated world that’s creating shorter and shorter attention spans. But what do you do if your child simply isn’t interested? As a mom and a children’s author, I have a few thoughts. 📚 (Note: the following six tips are excerpted from my latest blog post. Click the link in my bio to read the whole post! 👆🏻) 📚 1. Don’t Give Up. Or if you do give up, which I did again and again when it came to reading with my daughter, just don’t give up permanently. 📚 2. Check Your Child’s Eyesight. As a toddler, my daughter showed absolutely no interest in sitting down with a picture book. I just thought she was too energetic and busy. It turns out she couldn’t see. 😳 📚 3. Build Books Into Your Routine. We finally have a bedtime book routine established, but it took some time to get here. It’s hard to stick with it when your child keeps wandering off mid-sentence. 📚 4. Bless the Book-Loving Teachers. Hope and pray for the kind of teacher whose sheer enthusiasm for books will rub off on your child. We’re forever grateful for Mrs. Romriell, 2nd grade teacher extraordinaire. 📚 5. Attend Book Readings and Signings. Attend library story times. Get on your local bookstore’s email list and show up for author readings. Kids love meeting the faces behind their favorite stories. Get them into an environment where people are excited about books and the enthusiasm is contagious. 📚 6. Make it a Party. When you finish a book together, make plans to watch the movie version together (if there is one), and make snacks or treats that fit the book’s theme. We made Oreo spiders and ate gummy snakes for our Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets party. 📚 You can find more details about all of these tips on my blog (“Journey of a Reluctant Reader”). I’d also love to hear your ideas! What has worked to help the kiddos in your life fall in love with reading? 📚
Fuzzy rug, cozy slippers, comfy pants. It’s fall y’all! What’s your favorite thing about this time of year? 🍁🍂🍁
Just a lovely little #picturebook recommendation for you (while the grass is still green in my neck of the woods). . This gem from @corinnaluyken combines beautiful, spare language with gorgeous, bold illustrations, each with hidden heart motifs for children to spot. I love how this book introduces the topic of emotions to young readers—exploring how the state of our hearts can change from day to day and season to season, which is just the way it is and how it should be. 💛💛💛
Profound thoughts from writer Andrew Sullivan: 💡 “The family that is eating together while simultaneously on their phones is not actually together. They are, in author Sherry Turkle’s formulation, ‘alone together.’ You are where your attention is. If you’re watching a football game with your son while also texting a friend, you’re not fully with your child — and he knows it. Truly being with another person means being experientially with them, picking up countless tiny signals from the eyes and voice and body language and context, and reacting, often unconsciously, to every nuance. These are our deepest social skills, which have been honed through the aeons. They are what make us distinctively human. 💡 By rapidly substituting virtual reality for reality, we are diminishing the scope of this interaction even as we multiply the number of people with whom we interact. We remove or drastically filter all the information we might get by being withanother person. We reduce them to some outlines — a Facebook ‘friend,’ an Instagram photo, a text message — in a controlled and sequestered world that exists largely free of the sudden eruptions or encumbrances of actual human interaction. We become each other’s ‘contacts,’ efficient shadows of ourselves.’” 💡 #quote #quoteoftheday #read #writer #wordnerd #writersofinstagram #quotestagram #quotes #instagood #quotestoliveby
This song. It came out in 2015 with the Disney/Pixar movie Inside Out, and my 5-year-old wanted to hear it nonstop. It was the same year we lost our baby girl in the second trimester. The lyrics, which are about a very different kind of love and longing, pierced my heart: . 🌈🌈 I have a dream I hope will come true That you’re here with me And I’m here with you I wish that the earth, sea, and sky up above Will send me someone to love 🌈🌈 . October is Pregnancy and Infant Loss Awareness month, which is kind of perfect since September 30 was the day we said goodbye to our baby girl early in the second trimester. 💜💜💜 It’s a tender time of year all around, given that October 2nd is my big girl’s birthday, and October 4th was the day her birth parents placed her in our waiting arms. Love and loss, hope and despair, full arms and empty ones, a miracle and a memory, all jumbled together in one transformative season. Now, four years later, I am at peace, more so than I thought would be possible at the time. I have my double-rainbow baby. A son, now age 2, and he is a delight. 🌈🌈 . But I miss her still, the dream of her, the joy of feeling her with me. Yes, I would have chosen a different outcome for her if I had the choice, but I’m still grateful I got to carry her at all. I’m grateful for all she gave me in our brief time together. Because of her, I see others in grief with more compassion and love, I discovered strength I didn’t know I had, I received precious gifts of service and support from unexpected corners, I gained a greater hope in a life beyond this mortal realm—and I found the words to write a book that is now reaching others in their own cocoons of grief. Like the Lava song, like my book (#mybigdumbinvisibledragon), we don’t have to experience the same kind of loss or longing to be able to recognize our own hearts, our own experiences, in another’s words. The right words, expressed in the right way, can build bridges of understanding that help us feel less alone. If you’ve lost a tiny loved one, even if the circumstances were different, let me just say, “you’re here with me, and I’m here with you.” 💜💜💜
Nothing restores the soul like dipping one’s toes in the ocean. Why is that? Having the most restorative girls’ trip to Portland and Cannon Beach. Time is running short, so if you have any must-see, must-eat, must-do suggestions, lets hear them! 👇🏻 ✔️Powell’s City of Books ✔️ Pearl District ✔️ Ken’s Bakery ✔️ Cannon Beach ✔️ Haystack Rock ✔️ Pittock Mansion ✔️ Blue Star Donuts ✔️ Pine State Biscuits ✔️ 4 bookstores and a library (and counting)
Throwback to 2018, when this gorgeous girl was still sporting her long, luscious locks. She sure has grown up a lot in the last 18 months—short hair, braces, ears pierced, new glasses. But no matter how she changes on the outside, she’ll always be my miracle girl. The child of my heart. My dream come true. I could not be more proud of her big heart, imaginative mind, creative eye, and vibrant soul. She brings me more joy than she’ll ever know. #nationaldaughterday #adoptionrocks #mykeirajane Photo: @jordanbreee
Change is hard. Even when we REALLY want the change—it’s still hard. But here’s something that gave me hope. Something my therapist said about how change works. . Let’s say a hypothetical person is trying to become less reactive and stop absorbing other people’s emotions so much (not speaking from experience 😉). This person might be pretty hard on herself any time she catches herself in the behavior she wants to change. The thing she doesn’t realize is that catching herself in the act IS progress! AND the very fact that she identified a behavior that she wants to change—that is a hugely important first step. She deserves a pat on the back for that! Then, after she decides she wants to make a change, she might start noticing things she could have done differently while she’s in bed at night, thinking over her day. Instead of kicking herself for her failures, she could feel proud that she noticed the behavior at all. This is an essential second step! Eventually, she might notice the behavior while it’s happening, even if she feels powerless to stop it. Instead of kicking herself for her weakness, she could could feel proud that she recognized the problem so quickly—instead of hours later. This is huge! Then, after noticing the behavior in the moment a few (dozen) times, she might find she DOES have the ability to stop herself mid-reaction and reset the conversation. Rather than feeling guilty for the initial misstep, she could quietly celebrate the progress she’s making. And then, after a while, she might catch herself before she reacts at all. She might instead pause, take a deep breath, and RESPOND instead of reacting to the toddler or child or husband or inconsiderate driver in question. 👊🏻 . Even after all of this, she should not expect perfection. But she can promise to always get back on that 🐴 and try again. This how the process of change usually works. You don’t just decide to let go of deeply ingrained patterns—and then wake up the next morning with a new personality. It’s a process, and it will go a LOT better if you give yourself credit for the little victories. . Be patient with yourself. Be patient with other people. Change IS possible. 🤯
Happy 2-month book birthday to My Big, Dumb, Invisible Dragon! 🎉🎉🎉 ... After dreaming of becoming an author for so long, it still feels surreal. ... On the day of the book’s release, I half expected to wake up as a whole new person. More motivated, more validated, less prone to procrastination and self-doubt, just brimming with wisdom and confidence. I expected to feel like I’ve finally “arrived,” you know? ... But on the day of the book’s release, I still felt like me, in all of my imperfect glory. 😊 I still dawdled too much and wasted time and wondered what exactly I should be doing with myself. I still changed two poopy diapers and had to rush home from the bookstore to put my 2yo down for a nap. #authorlife ... And now? I want to get this book into as many people’s hands as possible. I want to find publishers for all my other books. I want to find the right literary agent. I want to try my hand at YA and middle-grade, and maybe even clean romance for adults. ... With one big goal achieved, the wishing and the wanting don’t stop. ... Don’t we all love to envision that we’ll be perfectly satisfied in that far-off “someday” when...we reach the goal, get the promotion, complete the race, lose the weight, find the perfect partner, have the baby, start the business, get out of debt, etc. etc. etc.? ... But the truth is, we are inherently forward-looking creatures, and once we reach one peak, we see that there are even higher peaks ahead of us that we couldn’t see before. And then we want to climb those too. And isn’t that as it should be? #mybigdumbinvisibledragon
 
 
 
 
 
 
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