There’s a new children’s book hitting the shelves as “If a Petoskey Could Talk” written by Brittany Darga and illustrated by Jennifer Franzoni will be for sale at the end of May at local bookstores and online.
“It’s not quite out yet, but it’s getting close,” Darga said. “I’ve always had a children’s book in mind to do, but at the same time when we moved back (to Leelanau) I had little kids and it just wasn’t feasible for me at the time.”
Darga, a Suttons Bay graduate of 2003, moved to Milwaukee for nearly a decade as she earned a master’s degree from Marquette University.
After a few years of working in the newspaper industry she went back to grad school before working in healthcare and corporate America for a few years. She was also an editorial intern at the Enterprise.
Darga, the daughter of Gary and Sharon Husted of Suttons Bay, had no idea what she was going to write about until lastsummer when she was at the beach with her children.
“We were at the beach all the time with my kids and they know the Petoskey stones are special,” she said. “I said to my kids, ‘Do you know that a Petoskey stone has seen dinosaurs?’ which they thought that was cool, and in my head I thought that would make a really good book.”
After the idea struck her, the first thing she did was Google to see how many children’s books there were about the Petoskey stones, and to her surprise there weren’t many.
It seemed like a “pie in the sky kind of thing,” she said.
“When I got home that same day, I wrote out the whole thing ... it seemed possible to write a children’s book locally.”
Whenever she got stuck during the process, she would go for a long run and flush out the ideas.
Petoskey stones are one of many things that makes northern Michigan unique.
“Every rock or every stone you hold has this big history,” she said. “I’ve read a lot of books to my kids, and one night I was reading books to my daughter and thought I could write one myself.”
Darga has three children; Abigail, 8, and twins, Morgan and Anna, 5. Darga says she couldn’t have written a children’s book if she didn’t have any kids herself.
“Now I understand (children) aren’t going to know certain things or they don’t understand, they need things in very simple terms,” Darga said.
The book is made for children ages 4 to 10-years old. There is scientific information for 8 to 10-year olds that provide a deeper dive for older children.
“If a Petoskey Stone Could Talk” is published through Mission Point Press in Traverse City.
“They helped it come to life,” she said.
Darga couldn’t have achieved this without the help from friend Jennifer Franzoni (Oltersdorf).
Darga and Franzoni became friends through their children attending Willow Hill preschool. Franzoni is an oil painter based out of Traverse City. She did all of the oil-style paintings that were illustrated in the book.
“We got to talking and (Darga) brought up the idea of a children’s book and she let me have a shot at it,” Franzoni said. “She was nice enough and it worked out.”
A challenge was getting the oil paintings converted into a digital illustration to be used for the book.
“We went business-to-business at the time. I had 10 paintings and couldn’t scan any of them,” she said. “It’s an interesting process when you look at the book and see every detail. No graphic design beside fonts and a few actual pictures ... There were things that were out of my comfort zone.”
