Martha Underwood
Martha Underwood
Local executive Martha Underwood utilized her time in quarantine to fulfill a long-time dream of writing a children’s book. The Shelby County resident was inspired by her own son’s experience during the COVID-19 pandemic and developed The Elf Series to help young children explore diversity, self-esteem, and emotions through the magic of Christmas.
“My youngest son was concerned that Christmas would be canceled because of COVID," Underwood said. "I assured him that it wouldn’t be and to help calm his concerns, we began drawing and writing stories around Christmas. Because I’m always trying to weave life lessons into our activities and bonding time, we wrote the Elf series stories to address managing emotions with Christmas as a background theme to make it fun and engaging.”
The Elf Series is a story of children excited about Christmas but fear their struggle with managing their emotions may ruin their holiday excitement. Determined to prove they can communicate their feelings and secretly guided by magical elves, they journey through a series of events to remind their parent’s the lessons they’ve learned.
There are four versions of the book that include a Black girl/boy (Paiyton/Parker) version and a white girl/boy (Emma/Ethan) version. The books have minor differences and each introduce unique characters in the same story to show that we are all the same. The characters will reappear as friends tackling tough topics in future books.
The Elf Series is available in hardback, paperback, and eBook on Amazon.com, Barnes & Nobles, and BN.com. Locally, the series is available at Once Upon a Time in Homewood, AL and Mountain Brook, AL.
