CAPE CORAL, Fla. (WINK)\u2014A Southwest Florida mother created interactive children’s books to help families cope after seeing how the COVID-19 pandemic affected her own child.<\/p>\n
Mary Asaro<\/a> watched as programs shut down and schools shifted to virtual learning. She noticed children struggling to understand why they were home and how to express their feelings.<\/p>\n “It was about five years ago, you know, like kids weren’t really understanding why they were home,” Asaro said.<\/p>\n The turning point came when she observed her own child during remote learning. She realized children needed a way to process their emotions beyond a computer screen.<\/p>\n “After I saw my child on the computer, I was like this. I mean, where are they going to be able to express their feelings and talk about things?” she said.<\/p>\n Asaro created interactive books with follow-up questions and activities designed to help children express their feelings. She wanted something more meaningful than typical children’s activity books.<\/p>\n “I wanted to write something that was going to be impactful, because all the books that I’ve looked at have been just busy stuff like coloring or an activity. I wanted something that was going to be interactive,” she said.<\/p>\n Her first book, “Shelley and Friends<\/a>,” features an anxious turtle and a mean crab. The second, “Otto’s Adventure<\/a>,” is about meeting a character that is not so nice. Some bundles include 3D characters like turtles and snakes to accompany the stories.<\/p>\n Asaro self-publishes her books and has already sold a couple hundred copies. She is working to spread awareness because she believes the books can help families connect and bond.<\/p>\n “I just, you know, the way that our society is right now, it’s if all these computers that are coming in front of them, I just also think there needs to be an outlet where they can, you know, have conversations and talk, because they’re going to need that,” she said.<\/p>\n Asaro shared her story with WINK News anchor Russ McCaskey at a WINK Listens event in Cape Coral. She will be at the Macaroni KID “School’s Out” event at Bell Tower on Thursday, May 28.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"CAPE CORAL, Fla. (WINK)\u2014A Southwest Florida mother created interactive children’s books to help families cope after seeing how…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":281623,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[119963,209,211,210,28,1521],"class_list":["post-281622","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cape-coral","tag-bell-tower","tag-cape-coral","tag-cape-coral-headlines","tag-cape-coral-news","tag-florida","tag-southwest-florida"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/281622","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=281622"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/281622\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/281623"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=281622"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=281622"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=281622"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}