The Adventures of Bella, Blake & Billy is a group project.  I wrote the story in 2018, my then six-year-old niece illustrated all of the pictures, my then four-year-old nephew was our creative director and helped us navigate what we should draw for our four-year-old audience.  My mom gave the pictures some love on photoshop by smoothening out the colors as well as hours and hours of manuscript size revisions. 

When my niece Julianna was six years old, she told me she wants to be an artist.  She would spend hours drawing pictures of herself, her dad Josh, mom Rahil, brother Jace, aunt Sara, uncle Tim, grandmother (my mom) Noushin, and me.  Julianna and Jace would draw pictures of the places they went on vacation or things they enjoyed doing.  It was their way of capturing their favorite moments.  I included a few of her pictures at the end of the book.

My love and passion for writing started when I was in fifth grade. I told my father I wanted to write like him, and he gave me a small journal and told me start by writing down all of my dreams first thing every morning. I woke up a few minutes early every morning and quickly jotted down my dreams using as many detail and descriptive words possessed by a ten-year-old.  I quickly progressed to writing stories I created with my own imagination.  I wrote about my favorite place I visited with my parents and sister when I was younger, the Hearst Castle and my favorite subject, mice.  I had about ten stories written with the idea that I would publish a book of short stories. 

Unfortunately, in January 1986, our house caught on fire, and we lost everything in the house, including my stories.  I remember when we went back to the house the day after the fire, I didn’t run to my room to check on my clothes or toys, I ran to check on my books.  I was devastated that they were gone.  Outside of school projects, I didn’t write again until I was thirteen.  It has always been what seemed like an unattainable dream to become an author of a published book.  My entire adult life has been consumed by either college, law school, work, or both.  But, after 35 years my dream of becoming a published author has finally come to fruition!  Stay tuned for my adult books!

I self-published The Adventures of Bella, Blake & Billy.  I’ve heard people mock those who self-publish as not being real authors.  But, after all the hard work, sweat and many, many tears of frustration trying to put a book together, I have even more respect for self-published authors.  Trying to navigate photoshop and manuscripts when my skills are limited to words on a page and not creating entire books, was a monumental feat.  My mom, Noushin spent six to eight hours a day for the last four days helping me get the logistics correct.  Without her, this project would not have been finished.  Charity Ayres walked me through the “how to” even start process, without her this project would not have even begun.  I’m eternally grateful to both of them for their help, support, and encouragement. 

If you’d like a copy, here is the link on Amazon https://www.amazon.com/dp/B09983MHWN/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=&sr=

If you’d like a copy signed by the author and illustrators, please Venmo $20 to @Laila-Khosroabadi and email me your address and your special note you’d like to add to your book at lailak818@yahoo.com.

Thank you!