Jan Hadwen Hubbell, an acclaimed screenplay writer, long-time local, former English teacher at Colorado Mountain College and now published children’s book author, is excited to have her newest story, “The Boy Who Couldn’t Say Goodbye,” available to children not only in the Roaring Fork Valley, but internationally as well. Her book tells the story of a young boy named Henry who struggles with transitions in his life. Throughout the story, he develops new skills and vocabulary to find acceptance and make life’s moments of change easier.
Hubbell shared how her background in poetry influenced her writing process for this book, which aims to convey big messages in few words and features an easy-to-follow plot, catering to the children between the ages of 2 and 8.
“[Poetry] informed the writing of this book,” Hubbell shared, “which is pretty interesting because you don’t have a lot of words to get across to the child the story, the plot and the characters. It’s not just about the plot, but it’s about creating a character and his emotions. Particularly with [Henry], he has trouble controlling his emotions when he has to transition from one activity to another, which is a prevalent theme with children.”
She explained how this story was inspired by her grandson, who once struggled with the same. In particular, Henry struggled with having to say goodbye to Hubbell at the end of family visits.
“The character was based on my 5-year-old grandson, who had trouble with smoothing into those transitions. That inspired the character of Henry and brought the question of: ‘How do you smooth out those transitions?’ Henry has a hard time saying goodbye; he doesn’t want to say goodbye because he thinks it’s the end of everything. His hardest goodbye is when he has to say goodbye to his grandmother. So there’s a lot of emotion in the character here,” she explained.
Hubbell’s daughter also played a significant role in bringing the book to visual fruition. Together, they discussed and designed the book’s visuals, then commissioned an artist to watercolor paint these designs, bringing them to life. She expressed deep gratitude for this due to the rapidly changing technology in the world of writing.
“These are hand-painted watercolors, which I have to say, is a small club in children’s books today. Many of them are designed by [artificial intelligence], and all the people in them and everything else look the same. To have actual hand-painted watercolors is incredible to me,” Hubbell shared.
Since its release, “The Boy Who Couldn’t Say Goodbye” has been published in India, England, Australia, Germany and parts of the Middle East. Although the book is published in English, Hubbell hopes to have translations printed for non-English readers, so that each child who has the chance to read this story with their parents can understand the messages within it.
“This behavior with children is so common because when they are in the middle of something, they can’t foresee that they can do the next thing and then might be able to return to what they were already doing another time. Mothers are always looking for a way to pull their child away from swinging and go to have dinner. It’s hard because they don’t want to change to the next thing. They’re not flexible, and so this will help. It doesn’t matter what country you’re from, where you are in the world. It helps it,” Hubbell expressed.
She continued, “The cool thing is, it helps both the mother and the child with the transitions and how to say goodbye. That is a hard thing to do, even adults don’t like to say goodbye to certain things. With my book, I am trying to take away the finality of the word, and differentiate the serious ones from the not-so-serious ones.”
Hubbell’s book is available for purchase at White River Books in Carbondale, as well as on Amazon and at Barnes & Noble, in both paperback and hardback editions.