Welcome, Mom’s Choice readers! Today we have with us Ann Marie Hannon, whose books consistently garner five-star reviews on Amazon. This prolific author’s most recent award-winner is The Power of a Flower—the prequel to her other MCA award-winning books in the “Kids with Worries” series.

This short but powerful story offers hope and understanding for moments when sadness or a sense of abandonment over life events becomes overwhelming. The book achieves this through a “gift” a little girl finds that renews the “circle of life.” This story also promotes the importance of genuine and enduring friendships through shared memories. All books in the “Kids with Worries” series illustrate how problem-solving aids our growth and learning. The author works to do this through easy-to-understand and solution-driven stories that resonate with both kids and parents.

MCA: Ann Marie, it’s so great to have you back with us today. Won’t you tell us a bit about yourself?

I am the author of several published children’s books as well as a book on mother-baby shared fitness and bonding. My likes are always related to the chance for opportunity and personal growth, as well as contribution.

I love to read and learn. Each helps tremendously in terms of writing and rewriting. However, my best experiences in life have been as a mom of three (now adult) children; being married to the same man for more than 40 years (ups and downs included but overall, a very wonderful time); and professional jobs in real estate, public policy administration, human resources management, workplace mediation and, most recently, screenplay writing. I hope you don’t think I’m a “jack of all trades,” but if you do, that’s fine. I’m just happy to have the chance to share my writing and the experiences that have shaped my writing, and hope these are enjoyable.

MCA: With such a richly varied background, what was your path to becoming a writer like?

I would capsulize my path as being involved with a family—especially kids in our family—where there are many life experiences shared, and with jobs, especially any type of job where I’m challenged to write and rewrite for a wide audience. Examples are my real estate career and the marketing and advertising; but also my policy writing work, which was very demanding and the need for rewriting occurred all the time.

MCA: What was your inspiration for writing The Power of a Flower?

Surprisingly, I found a small storyboard one of my daughters left when we became empty nesters. She had done the storyboard for a fifth-grade assignment. The storyboard portrayed a small seed planted in the ground—its need for soft dirt, shining sunlight, and rainwater to grow and then turn into a beautiful flower. The storyboard was about 20 screenshots, and my book (with more story and some added science about botany) developed into 76 pages for the hardcover version. You will find, though, that I definitely credited my daughter for inspiring The Power of a Flower. I am still amazed that what I saved, then found by chance so many years later, served to inspire me to write what became a double-award-winning book.

MCA: Your books are known for helping children develop problem-solving skills. How do they do that?

The books primarily reinforce the use of imagination (called brainstorming) in mediation. This is where, when a kid is faced with a problem, he or she thinks of (uses the imagination to identify) different ways to solve it. Another way the books help is to allow kids to learn through the stories about how other kids solved the same or similar problem—and then the reader decides to follow that lesson learned. There are many reviews of my books online to support that this happens.

MCA: Please discuss how the book deals with the circle of life.

The circle of life in my book The Power of a Flower teaches about the inevitable transitions of life. The little girl and her friends are delighted when the seed grows to become a beautiful flower, but when the flower wilts and dies there is a lot of sadness—until the little girl discovers the flower has left seeds that will germinate to create another beautiful flower. This transition demonstrates the power of friendship—where we may have friends in earlier childhood, and we may lose track of those friends—but the bonds of friendship and the levels of communication we used will surely help to discover and bond with new friends. The old friends will never be forgotten either, as the song in this book shows.

MCA: Important lessons to learn. Tell me, what kind of response from readers have you received?

I’ll let the online reviews speak for themselves. Here are a few:

“I very much enjoyed this sweetly written story. It’s highly accessible for young children and sends a very sweet ‘circle of life’ message, which I suspect will go down well with grandparents, parents and schools. The vocabulary is highly accessible. In many picture books, the author often forgets how young the readership is. It’s OK to throw in a few big words since it develops the readers’ vocabulary. But not so many, or it interrupts the flow of the story. All in all, a bit of a gem!”

“Love the thought and message of this book. Perfect book for teaching children about finding hope when feeling abandoned or when hard things happen.”

“This is a very cute and inspiring story about a girl and her flower. It follows through the entire life cycle of the flower and then ends the story with teaching kids about pollination. It has a nice friendship theme as well. The illustrations are beautiful and help to enhance the story.”

MCA: What is next for your writing endeavors? Do you have anything in the pipeline?

Yes, I’ve just published a brand-new book for younger kids. It’s called Little Puppy’s Great Adventure. It teaches how paying attention and staying focused is very important, and failing to do that can lead to some amazing events.

I’m also looking into screenwriting so that my books can be more actively presented. The screenwriting is going well, and my first effort is called “Dear Grandma Annie.” It’s all about a sweet lady who uses a “worry-wort machine” to spit out worries of the day and then she solves those worries with magical stories.

After that I have one other book that I’ve been trying to finish for several years: Paladoro and the Magical Gift. Two youngsters meet up with a huge flying dog that has been cursed, and they fly away with the dog through a time warp tunnel to help the dog remove the curse. What they find, though, is more than expected since there are many others who have been cursed by the evil Word Monster Man. There is lots going on as you can imagine, and I’ve promised myself I will finish this book by the end of 2025. So please stay tuned.

MCA: Ann Marie, thanks again for joining us today. We wish you the very best in all your endeavors!