AVON LAKE, Ohio — On a night when Dr. Rox Siles and her son couldn't decide on a bedtime story, they created the story of "Charlie the Turtle and the Muddy Birthday Cake."
"We're not gonna read a story tonight, we're just going to make up one of our own. So that's how Charlie originated, he would throw in one component and I would throw in another component," Dr. Siles recalls.
Charlie's story sat on her desktop for a few years, until the pandemic. During quarantine, she found Monica Kimmell's amazing chalk art on Facebook.
"I was just blown away by her talent," Dr. Siles said.
Monica's photography business stalled during the pandemic.
"I was bored, so I took my chalk and went outside and started doing three to five chalk drawings every day," Monica says.
Dr. Siles wasn't the only one who noticed.
"This just snowballed, now people are commissioning me to do chalk drawings for special occasions like graduation parties, father's day, mother's day, communions, birthdays," Monica adds.
Dr. Siles and her son may have written about Charlie, but Monica brought the turtle to life in color.
"Not only is it nice for me personally to bring this special moment between my child and I together, but it is also to share how two strangers got together using social media and accomplished something that we would never accomplish on our own and to do something completely outside the box," Dr. Siles says.
And it wasn't just one book. Dr. Siles also wrote "Santa Goes Sledding" at the same time, which will be available for Christmas in July.
She's also proud of what this endeavor taught her son.
"Even though you've never done it before, you just find a way to do it. And that's funny because that's Charlie's story. But at the same time, you know he watches mom doing something completely different than what she does every day. But we worked together and learned a process together to get this done," Dr. Siles said
Kimmell also got a job as an children's art teacher for the summer and she's been commissioned by another publishing house to do another book.
Dr. Siles isn't done writing, she has another character she wants to create to help explain asthma to kids.
She also wants to give back to the community. Dr. Siles was born in Bolivia, so her books are also in Spanish and she wants to help use the money to help an orphanage there, as well as get books into the hands of kids in the hospital.
You can get her first book at Barnes and Noble in Crocker Park and also on Amazon.
More from Monica Robins:
Editor's Note: The below video is from a previously published story