Joy & the Butterfly

JOY & THE BUTTERFLY
The Magical Garden

A Magical, Faith-Filled Adventure for Children — and Everyone Young at Heart

155 pages • 6 × 9 inches • Full-Color Illustrated Novelette

What if one small act of kindness could open the door to a magical garden — and change a life forever?

Ten-year-old Joy has just moved with her family from the noisy city to Eden Valley Acres, a peaceful farm filled with animals, flowers, family, friendship, and new possibilities.

Then a school assignment leads Joy to save a tiny caterpillar.

She has no idea that this simple act of kindness will bring an extraordinary new friend into her life: Violet, a dazzling butterfly with a gentle voice, a loving heart, and a very special purpose.

Together, Joy and Violet discover that ordinary days can hold extraordinary blessings — and that kindness, gratitude, courage, faith, family, nature, and love can make our inner heart-light shine brighter.

Mom’s Choice Awards® Gold Recipient

$23.99 (Ultra Premium Color — Softcover) IngramSpark

$23.99 (Ultra Premium Color — Softcover) Barnes & Noble

$29.99 (Ultra Premium Color — Hardback) IngramSpark

$9.99 (E-Book) Barnes & Noble

$29.99 (Hardback) Amazon

A Story to Read with Your Heart

In a world that often feels hurried, noisy, and complicated, Joy & the Butterfly invites us to slow down, notice what is beautiful, and rediscover the wonder hiding inside ordinary life.

Joy’s adventures take readers through a magical garden and a loving small-town community filled with family, animals, nature, laughter, music, friendship, courage, and unexpected miracles.

But underneath the enchantment is something even more meaningful.

Joy learns to believe in herself when others are unkind. She discovers how gratitude can change the way we see an ordinary day. She learns that helping someone else creates ripples of goodness we may never fully see. And she discovers that courage does not mean never being afraid — it means allowing love and faith to become stronger than fear.

Although written so children can become completely swept up in Joy’s adventures, the deeper messages speak just as naturally to parents, grandparents, teachers, caregivers, and adults who have never outgrown their sense of wonder.

What Will You Discover in the Magical Garden?

• Kindness can make your heart-light shine brighter.

• Gratitude helps ordinary days become extraordinary.

• Courage grows when we remember how deeply we are loved.

• Nature can comfort, teach, inspire, and restore us.

• Family and community become stronger when people care for one another.

• Self-worth does not depend upon what a bully — or anyone else — says about you.

• Faith can help us feel guided, protected, hopeful, and less alone.

• Giving and paying kindness forward can transform far more than one person’s life.

• Wonder is everywhere when we remember to look for it.

These ideas grow naturally out of Joy’s adventures rather than feeling like lessons pasted onto a story.

Shhh... There’s a BIG Secret Near the End 🦋

Something extraordinary happens late in Joy’s adventure.

We are not going to tell you what it is.

In fact, Joy and I have a little agreement with everyone who reads the book: once you discover Violet’s remarkable secret, please don’t spoil it for someone who has not reached that part of the story yet.

You may whisper about it with other readers who already know. 😊

But let every new reader have that wonderful moment of discovery for themselves.

Promise?

That secret is one of the reasons the story becomes much more than a tale about a girl and a beautiful butterfly. Violet turns out to be far more significant in Joy’s life than she first appears.

$23.99 (Ultra Premium Color — Softcover) IngramSpark

$23.99 (Ultra Premium Color — Softcover) Barnes & Noble

$29.99 (Ultra Premium Color — Hardback) IngramSpark

$9.99 (E-Book) Barnes & Noble

$29.99 (Hardback) Amazon

A Book for Children — and the Child Still Living Inside Every Adult

I lovingly dedicated Joy & the Butterfly to all children everywhere, including those who are young in spirit at any age.

Children can enjoy the adventure, magical creatures, animals, humor, and beautiful full-color images.

Older readers often discover something different.

The story can remind us of truths we sometimes knew more easily when we were young: notice beauty, be kind, count your blessings, forgive, have faith, spend time in nature, help someone who needs you, believe in yourself, and do not become so busy growing up that you forget how to be delighted.

Sometimes a children’s story reaches places in the heart that a lecture never could.

Read Together. Talk Together. Grow Together.

The story does not have to end when the final chapter does. Near the back of the book are 100+ fun questions and inquiries for adults and children designed to encourage conversation, observation, comprehension, memory, vocabulary, reading readiness, emotional understanding, and family connection.

No report cards. No pop quizzes. And absolutely no principal calling your home if Grandpa gets Question 17 wrong. 😊

Just meaningful conversation — and another reason to spend time together.

Joy and family with beautiful church yard

Why Joy & the Butterfly Feels Different

Joy lives in a world where children are loved, families spend time together, nature matters, animals are treasured, neighbors help one another, foster children are welcomed into loving homes, and kindness is considered a strength rather than a weakness.

Her family is diverse and includes adopted children, and the wider Eden Valley community repeatedly comes together to care for others.

The story is openly faith-friendly and spiritually uplifting, while keeping the emphasis on universally understandable values: compassion, courage, gratitude, family, hope, forgiveness, generosity, and love.

There is plenty of magic.

But the greatest magic in the book is what human beings can do for one another.

A Personal Note from Susan

I created Joy & the Butterfly because I believe children deserve stories that leave them feeling safer, kinder, braver, more grateful, more confident, and more hopeful about life.

And I believe adults sometimes need exactly the same reminder.

My hope is that when you close this book, you will look at your own life a little differently — noticing more beauty, giving more kindness, appreciating the people you love, spending more time in nature, strengthening your faith, and remembering that even an ordinary day can hold something wonderful.

Joy may be ten years old.

But the wisdom she discovers belongs to all of us.

With love,
Susan

Give Someone You Love a Little More JOY

Some books entertain us for an afternoon.

Others find a permanent place on a bedside table, in a child’s bedroom, in a family library, or in the heart.

Joy & the Butterfly was created to be read, shared, talked about, revisited, and given away with love.

Give it to a child or grandchild. Read it together as a family. Share it with a teacher, parent, friend, relative, or someone going through a season when a little extra hope would be welcome.

And perhaps keep one for yourself.