LYNN — Lynner Marlene Slaven Hurley’s children’s book might seem, on the surface, like a nice little story about anthropomorphic lollipops.
But like most children’s literature, it goes deeper, to include a theme of inclusiveness and acceptance, as well as to convey the carefree nature of the author’s own Beverly childhood.
The book, “The Lollipop Kids,” is about four children who look like lollipops. It’s an illustrated, rhyming story that Hurley hopes will “delight children from ages 8 months to 8 years.”
It is illustrated, she said, with vivid colors and includes children of different ethnicities “and offers a subtle message of accepting others as they are.”
Hurley said “the kids all have bright colors, and it shows the inclusion of everyone.”
But there’s also a certain nostalgia that goes with the book. Slaven, 61, recalls her own childhood, and how much of it she spent outdoors playing.
In this book, she said, “the kids are outdoors, and I look back, and we were always outdoors playing. We could play in the streets because our fathers all had their cars, and they were at work. And when we weren’t outdoors, we were indoors playing games with our mother.”
Hurley, who will conduct a story time/book signing Wednesday from 5:30 to 6:30 p.m. at Sacred Heart School in Lynn, said she got the idea for the book from watching the “Wizard of Oz” 15 years ago and being taken by the munchkins who represented the “Lollipop Guild.”
“I thought that I’d like to write a story about that,” she said, “so I started writing down notes.”
She drew from her childhood again, this time from memories of her father, who used to tell her stories in rhyme.
“He didn’t read to me, but he told me stories,” she said. “He used to recite a poem, ‘Jabberwocky,’ that — as far as I knew — was a made-up poem. Then, when I was in ninth grade, in English Class, we had to read it and I’m thinking ‘you’ve got to be kidding me.’ He wasn’t making it up.”
The nonsense poem is by Lewis Carroll, who included it in “Through the Looking Glass,” which was the sequel to “Alice in Wonderland.”
Later, in college, Hurley said her father helped her write a children’s book as part of a class project.
Inspired by such whimsy, Hurley set about trying to turn her idea into a children’s story but kept running into roadblocks.
“It wasn’t working, and it didn’t work until I decided to make it rhyme,” she said.
That was the impetus she needed to get over the hump. Once she found an illustrator, she went about trying to find a publisher — a task that proved to be harder than she’d expected. Finally, she went the self-publishing route, and, with the help of her illustrator, formatted the book for publication.
“I get a percentage of any book that’s published,” she said. “But more important, it’s out there and people are spreading the word.”
One of her friends read the book to her 8-month-old child as a bedtime story, she said, “and it held her attention. That’s why I say the book should thrill anyone from 8 months to 8 years.”
Hurley, an X-Ray technician who works in Everett, is not finished with “The Lollipop Kids.” She has a second book in the series that’s almost ready to go to the illustrator, and is working on writing a third.
The book is available on amazon.com.
