Photo by Sarah Finnegan.
Children’s author Ashley Holt reads one of her books aloud to her daughter’s first grade class on Nov. 13, at Mount Laurel Elementary School.
While Ashley Holt has written three children’s books focusing on positivity and confidence, there was a point when she was not confident her books would end up published.
“I went through a lot of disasters,” Holt said, when discussing her journey toward publishing her three books, which were all released between late October and early November.
The stories started as fun tales to read to her children, and then her children’s friends started asking to hear the stories as well. After encouragement from friends, Holt took the step to illustrate and publish her books, but several snags along the way left her doubtful.
She got a new surge of encouragement, however, in July, on her dad’s birthday. He had died in May, just a few weeks before his birthday, and Holt said she felt his presence pushing her to “do something great today.” She decided not to give up, and suddenly, everything started to come together.
“Within a couple of months, it was completed,” Holt said. “After two years of disasters, the third time was the charm.”
Holt’s dad was always a source of encouragement, she said, and she can see his spirit in her books, which focus on positive affirmation and self love.
“It became so natural for me to do [positive affirmations] because it had been so instilled in me [by my dad], so I felt like it came naturally to me,” Holt said.
In addition to the encouragement from her dad, Holt said, she was inspired to pass along positive affirmations from work she did as Miss Alabama. She formed a nonprofit ministry called S.M.I.L.E. (Sports Ministry Inspiring Lives & Education) and during that time she worked withunderprivileged children.
While she was raised with positive words from her family and worked to instill that positivity in her own kids, Holt said she realized not all kids had that same support.
“It’s a passion of mine. I’ve always been a journaler, but as I watched my kids grow older, positive affirmations were something that were important to me, and something I wanted to instill in them,” Holt said. “So throughout these books, you’ll see the main themes are positive affirmations, and they’ll repeat over and over.”
The first story, “Miko the Perfectly Imperfect Pug,” was inspired by one of Holt’s own dogs, as well as something she would say with her daughters on their way to school: “I’m as strong as the sun, I’m as big as the sky. There’s nothing I cannot do.”
“I would make them say it three times before they got out of the car, and that became the premise of the book,” Holt said.
Her other books, “Fearless with Finley” and “Make a Wish with Marley,” also have positive themes: bravery and finding purpose in pain.
“You read this book, and you don’t go, ‘Wow, that is a book on positive affirmations and self-confirmations,’” Holt said. “You just read it and it brings joy and laughter, and it just has these little subliminal messages that are positive affirmations.”
And in the end, Holt said passing along that happiness is her goal. In a world where young children are affected by anxiety and depression, she hopes that introducing these concepts at an early age will battle the negativity they can face in the world.
“The bigger picture of this is to inspire kids to believe in themselves and have big dreams,”she said.
For more information or to purchase a book, go to ashleyholtbooks.com.
