Today we’d like to introduce you to Sonja Wendt.
Hi Sonja, can you start by introducing yourself? We’d love to learn more about how you got to where you are today?
Sonja Lange Wendt is an award winning author for the Cultivating Compassion in Children books series and cultivator of the Intergenerational Reading & Seeding program. She uses a variety of different characters between books, rototilling difficult topics related to inclusion, ageism, self-image and self-identity to bring them to the surface for discussion, awareness, and comprehension to grow understanding and compassion. In addition to the Children’s book, she has also written a parenting book as part of the series. The Parent Book is the combination of a series of blogs on the 12 steps to raise a compassionate child related to the steps in growing a healthy plant. These blogs were recognized as one of top 10 Parenting blogs. Sonja took the blogs and wrote a book from them that includes poems, inspirational messages, real life stories, and current situations parents have found valuable to discuss with other parents. This book won first place in a parenting category.
Sonja never had aspirations to be an author and feels that she was inspired to do so by events surrounding her. One incident was a preteen suicide in her local community. Another was a random email she received about anti-aging cream. The ad for the cream had a story about a little boy who had a pretty grandma and an “ugly” grandma. The pretty grandma used the cream whereas the ugly grandma did not. This fueled Sonja to address self esteem and natural beauty issues and was the foundation for the children’s book, “Can Old Be Beautiful? ” This was the seed that was planted starting the growth of the 4 book children’s series and the parenting book.
Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way. Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
Anything important to communicate and to address, has challenges and obstacles preventing it from happening. Within a month after Sonja’s first two children’s books were published, COVID-19 hit the world. This brought an abrupt halt to any in person marketing and promotional events. Another obstacle is the cost of children’s books in general, with preference usually being hard cover and with the vivid colors of children’s books. Sonja pivoted to also offering paperback books, still with the vivid colors and most importantly, the messages of compassion, at a lower cost. Besides Amazon and books stores, Sonja sells her books in person at many craft shows at reduced prices experiencing the joy of seeing her little customers. She loves the interactions and excitement of children bringing home one of her books.
As you know, we’re big fans of Cultivating Compassion in Children. For our readers who might not be as familiar what can you tell them about the brand?
The Cultivating Compassion in Children series is about preparing, nurturing, growing, teaching, and appreciating compassionate children through creating increased awareness. It is like gardening that requires preparing the soil, watering, and fertilizing the plants, weeding, and then appreciating the fruit or flowers that are produced. The stories are intended, like looking through a magnifying glass, for children to get a bigger picture, a greater understanding of different situations. The series addresses inclusion, bullying, kindness, and understanding the natural process of aging. Seymour and Serina Seed start each of the stories and then wrap them up at the end. Each of the stories have questions at the end to help facilitate a healthy discussion between the adult and child about the messages conveyed in the story.
Risk taking is a topic that people have widely differing views on – we’d love to hear your thoughts.
Over the past several years of this authoring and publishing journey, Sonja says she learned that the biggest risk was not taking risks. Through spiritual readings, mentors, and her Christian beliefs, although still challenging and scary, she believes sharing gifts and talents is meant for others to receive. By not stepping outside of her comfort zone, she believes she is preventing others from getting what they need from her. This thought inspires her to move forward even with difficult and uncomfortable tasks. In this case, she feels her words that were inspired from above are meant to make this world a more compassionate place, one seed at at time, one story at a time, one person at a time.
Contact Info:
- Website: sonjawendt.com
- Instagram: @skwendt
- Facebook: @sonja.k.wendt
- Linkedin: @sonjawendt
- Twitter: @sonjalangewendt
- LinkedIn: Sonja Wendt
