Columbia Falls writer, actor and former children’s counselor Lenny Granger has published a fictional picture book for children about the attacks on 9/11.

It’s ideal for the upcoming 25th anniversary of that day.

Suppose your 6-year-old one day asks, “Why is everyone on hold if they need a paramedic?”

Might take a minute to understand she’s heard people discuss what they’re doing on 9/11.

“Children see things differently and it’s great to have a book that helps explain serious issues to them. ‘A Bright and Shining Morning’ does just that. It tells the story of two little girls who are at daycare in New York when two planes crash into the Twin Towers. Each of the two girls loses a family member that day, both first responders,” Granger explained.

She first wrote the book in 2013.

The book does not explore the details of the cruel attacks but how children felt and how they responded that fateful day. The book’s message transcends ideology; it shows that children everywhere will always have grownups to help them with such hard things. It can also help young people who were not alive in 2001 understand how children may have felt that day.

The book is available online and has been praised by the late celebrated author Helen Fitzgerald, author of “The Grieving Child.” 

Granger says the book helps anyone, including parents, “slip inside the mind of a child, giving insight into how she uses her limited life experience to understand tragedy.”

Granger served as a grief counselor to preschool and elementary school students under  Fitzgerald.

The book trailer is on YouTube at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ljDLZmyN3XE.

Granger has been living in Columbia Falls with her partner Roger Hopkins for the past 10 years.

“I’ve been happily unmarried 20 years,” she quipped.

She is an award-winning journalist and writer of hundreds of national and international communications on the arts and education for the Kennedy Center. She grew up in Northern Virginia, served as writer-in-residence for Children’s Hospital in the nation’s capital, and taught world literature at the college level.

Today she enjoys acting with the Whitefish Theatre Company and continues to write fiction and nonfiction, including a work of short stories called “The Old Baby and Other Stories.”

“You can snack on that book,” she said. “It’s really good on airplanes.”

She is also working a on a novel using her own journals from the point of view of a sister who finds the works and reflects back on them.

Her works are available on Amazon. Search for Lenny Granger.