I Don't. I Don't. I Do! Offers Kids A Bedtime Story Wrapped In A Timeless Truth

What children often have difficulty grasping is that they sometimes have to do what they don’t like — before they can do what they do like. This little secret is illuminated in I Don’t. I Don’t. I Do!, the first illustrated children’s ebook from Hungry Mutt productions.

The picture book, available on Amazon Kindle and Apple Books, was written by former Tulane University Instructor Linda Cooper. She uses a classically repetitive rhythm to portray a day in the life of a young boy, showing the compromises he must make to get his heart’s desires.

The colorful illustrations by Jonathan R. Hodge, a graduate of the Columbus College of Art and Design, capture how sharing snacks, taking naps and taking turns are often prerequisites for going out to play, making friends and having fun.

The ebook, which makes a delightful bedtime story, enables children to see how their own little dilemmas might be solved.

Cooper, a former high school teacher who taught English as a Second Language at Tulane University, said she woke one morning with the title and idea for I Don’t. I Don’t. I Do! swirling in her head. Having raised five children, she expected kids to relate to the book, but was amused that many adults told her they could identify with its theme. Typical comments were “I don’t want to go to work, but I do want a paycheck” and “I don’t want to diet, but I do want to lose weight.” Poet Dorothy Parker, Cooper said, put it another way: “I hate writing; I love having written.”

Hodge, a graduate of the Columbus College of Art and Design and the Aristides Atelier in Seattle, has also done medical illustrations for Stanford University and was a featured speaker at the 2012 Seventh International Conference on the Arts in Society in Liverpool. His portfolio includes commissioned portraits on copper plates, and a large history painting entitled Wrath of Katrina, depicting flood victims in the 2005 hurricane that devastated his hometown of New Orleans.