Caleb Laughlin

In the early (pre-pandemic) summer of 2019 I sat down to write and illustrate a kid’s book. It had always been a dream of mine to create and illustrate a picture book of some sort and I felt that the time was right. I decided on an ABC book, the subject matter and format, I hoped would establish a nice set of limits and constraints to be creative within. Unfortunately when I sat down to actually write it, all I could come up with was that A was for a happy little Alligator and B was for a silly little Bear, ugh! I started to become irritated with the saccharine nature of all of the examples that kept playing out in my mind and I began to imagine those same animals with various ailments and diseases and not so sickeningly cute, because...why not? So I pursued the idea of a weird ABC book about animals with infectious diseases. I had no other justifiable reasoning as to why I felt it was appropriate or necessary to actually follow through on this bizarre thought exercise other than that it just totally amused me and made me laugh. Folks around me seemed to feel the same and offered words of encouragement, or maybe it was disgust. Either way I took their facial expressions as indications that I should move forward with my creative endeavor.

Then the Pandemic hit. “Oh great! I’m going to release a “kids” (not really kids) book about infectious diseases and sad animals during a pandemic,” I said to myself. So I appropriately shelved the project for a while and took up hoarding toilet paper and washing my mail. But the need to finish this either terrible or maybe brilliant but probably terrible creative exercise kept eating away at me and I was driven to finish this bizarre book, global pandemic be damed!

For better or for worse my book is finally finished. It is called “A Is For Anthrax - An ABC Book of Infectious Diseases” It has been a labor of love and blast to write and illustrate. I would be honored and humbled if you felt compelled enough to take a look at it on Amazon, purchase a copy and write a review. Thank you in advance from the bottom of my heart.

Until we meet again online or in person.

Best always,

Caleb