Grief is one of those difficult feelings that everyone experiences at some point in their life. For children, grief can be especially confusing and difficult. To help children process this difficult emotion, Amanda Held created the children’s book Patriot and Rowan’s Journey from Grief.
Amanda Held is the founder and facilitator for H.O.O.V.E.S (Healing of our Veterans Equine Service), a local organization that rescues horses and uses them to help veterans with PTSD. In 2013, Held unexpectedly lost her father who helped her run their farm. Along with his death, she lost the farm and many of their horses. During this time of grief, she found a process to help herself cope and developed exercises to help the veterans that she works with.
She decided to focus her attention on another population—children. Children, especially now, have been experiencing a lot of loss, and “with all the grief our children go through..having this process [to cope] can make or break them,” explains Held.
Held’s book centers around the animals on her farm. Patriot and Rowan’s Journey from Grief is about a little boy, Rowan, who is grieving for the farmer (based on Held’s father) who is “gone.” Patriot, a mini horse with dwarfism who lives on Held’s farm, approaches Rowan, who is crying, to see what the matter is. Throughout the book, Patriot tries numerous ways to cheer up Rowan, but each attempt only works temporarily. Patriot then takes Rowan to look for the farmer. Throughout the search, Rowan encounters other farm animals (all based on real animals from Herd’s farm) who talk with Rowan about the farmer. Although they never find the farmer, they do find the traits that Rowan loved about the farmer through his visits with the various farm animals.
The story is metaphorical and focuses on the idea that even when we lose someone we love, we can still find the traits that they embodied all around us in our lives.
In order to bring her idea to fruition, Held enlisted the help of Sara Kendel, the author of the story, and Kristen Woods, the illustrator. With their collaboration, a children’s book was born.
The book is currently in the pre-selling stage with the hope of it being published in time for Christmas. Held is hoping to raise $50,000 in pre-sales in order to pay the author and illustrator and purchase copies of the book to donate. She plans to collaborate with schools and funeral homes in order to get the book in the hands of children who need it the most. The plan is to donate one book for every book purchased. If you are interested in purchasing a copy of the book or would like to donate to the cause, please visit fundly.com/patriot-tales-children-s-book.
