If parents want a book to help potty train their child, the selection is virtually limitless. If, however, they look for a book to help their child cope with the temporary absence of a military parent who has been deployed overseas, the selection slims down considerably.
Sugin Musgrave, a Michigan native and military spouse who previously lived for six years at Grand Forks Air Force Base and currently resides at Ramstein Air Base in Germany with her husband and three children, saw a need to reassure military children their deployed parents were coming back that wasn't being met. This is a need Musgrave knows all too well. Her own husband returned home in July after a 10-month deployment in Afghanistan.
To help fill this need, she wrote "Butterfly in the Sky Daddy's Little Girl," a story she had been telling for numerous years and finally committed to paper about six years ago. The story follows Emma, who is whisked around the globe by an angel in search of her father, who is deployed somewhere overseas. Along the way Emma finds out that many different fathers from every branch of the military miss their children, before she finally finds her own father and learns why he must be away from his family for such a long time.
Musgrave said she wanted to show children in the military they aren't alone in dealing with this, because it was exactly what her oldest son went through when he was 4 years old.
"My oldest son, he thought Daddy wanted to leave. It didn't matter that our friend next door, who's in the same place, same unit, that they had to leave, too," Musgrave said. "His daddy has to go, my daddy wants to go. And he was only 4, he didn't understand what was going on, he wasn't sure of the whole picture."
The book, which was released this past October, is self-published because the wait to go through a traditional publisher was four years. It is available at (www.amazon.com) and (www.authorhouse.com). Musgrave plans to write three more, each featuring a son or daughter searching for a mother or father, so every child who has a deployed parent will have a book to read that is specific to his or her situation.
"With the military, the children go through so much, they each need their own book. And again this story covers all five branches, it's not just Air Force, it's not just for the Army. It pertains to all of them, and talks about different jobs they do," she said. "The children, they need so much support, they are overlooked so often with everything that goes on."
Musgrave chose to never show the face of Emma or her parents in the illustrations, and used a number of techniques to hide their identities from view, including giving Emma a large yellow bow in her hair, which emulates the yellow ribbons that show support for members of the military. She didn't show their faces so every child who reads the book can imagine themselves and their parents in the story.
Similarly, she didn't give specific locations when Emma and her angel stopped to visit members of the military in the search for her father, but rather gives vague descriptions that could apply to just about anywhere a child's parent might be deployed.
"I describe areas in the world because we have people all over the world protecting people," Musgrave said.
One thing she is particularly proud of is the fact that the Coast Guard - a branch of the military often forgotten about - is included in the story.
"The Coast Guard were really happy they were included in the book, because they always get ignored when it comes to the military, but they're right here for us," Musgrave said. "With (Hurricane) Katrina they were outstanding, and they're still helping in Iraq and Afghanistan. There's Coast Guard members that are called all over (the world), and a lot of people don't realize that."
Musgrave feels the art in the book is just as important as the story. It took her around 1 1/2 years to find the right artist, 14-year-old Richard Warner, who lives just outside Ramstein. Rather than hire a professional artist, Musgrave wanted a military child to do the illustrations.
"I was really picky because I wanted this book to represent any little girl of any ethnicity, because we have everyone in the American military," she said. "We have people from Africa that have joined, we have people Ukraine that have joined the military, (and) they're not even (U.S.) citizens. ... There's so many noble, outstanding people in our military, there's no way that I could just make a child look one way."
Another theme Musgrave took time to explore in the book is the kinds of jobs military parents have. Many children, and more than a few adults, think being in the military means carrying a gun and shooting the enemy, which couldn't be any farther from the truth.
In the book, Emma and her angel drop in on a Coast Guardsman who helps other ships at sea, an airman who missed his daughter's birth because he was helping other planes refuel in mid-air, a group of Marines who are laying water pipes for a school they recently built, a Navy medic, and finally her father, who is a radioman at an Army checkpoint.
Emma's father is helping to guard several towns from terrorists, who are explained in the book in plain and simple terms as "very bad people that don't like it when people think for themselves and want freedom."
"The only thing that makes the news ... is the negative. All the great things they've done, we are doing so much work in Africa, tons of outstanding work in Afghanistan and Iraq. But all you hear about a majority of the time is who blew up what building, and how many people died," she said. "They're not talking about how many schools got built, how many people are returning to college, how many women are able to work.
"I run Operation We Do Care (a non-profit organization that supports the military), and I have pictures of Marines where they were rebuilding a school. And it is so rewarding for them to come to a place where they have nothing and give them a school, and give them a soccer field."
For more information on Operation We Do Care or the book, Musgrave can e-mailed at Herokidscope@gmail.com.
Musgrave said self-publishing the book hasn't been cheap, and so far she's only made back a fraction of her expenses. But she didn't create "Butterfly in the Sky Daddy's Little Girl" to make money, and neither did Warner. Musgrave said his parents actually bought him a new painting program for his computer specifically to make it easier for him to work on the book. Musgrave also noted that she actually tried to give the story and all its rights to the military so more children would have access to it, but was politely refused.
While the book has sold in limited numbers so far, Musgrave did say there was some interest brewing in possibly translating the book into German for the German military.
"This book is needed. Anyone can go online and there are not enough books for our (military) children, especially for (all military branches)" she said. "There's no book that includes all the branches. There's not one book out there. ... They're (children) not alone, and their parent loves them, no matter where they are or what's going on."
