This Junius Heights neighbor turned stories about her dog being scared of fire hydrants into a children’s book series

Junius Heights neighbor Anna Simon likes a challenge.

That’s what led the founder of Greenhouse Grant Writing and former teacher to write and illustrate a series of children’s books inspired by her late standard poodle, Paisley.

Has she ever done that before? No, but that didn’t stop her from giving it a shot.

Simon taught fifth graders for a few years at schools in Northwest Dallas. She enjoyed working with children but found that she liked developing activities more than teaching. So, she earned a master’s degree in curriculum and instruction and took jobs where she could be more behind the scenes crafting children’s programming and coaching instructors. This includes stints at the nonprofit Project Transformation and YMCA of Metropolitan Dallas. At the latter, she picked up a new skill — grant writing.

“I started developing an interest on the fundraising side of things and moved into the grants manager position at the Y,” Simon says. “I’ve basically always been a writer. I’ve done curriculum development into grant writing into writing books. So, I’ve always done writing to some capacity. My audience has just changed.”

Grant writing helped her make it through the COVID-19 pandemic, during which she lost her job at the YMCA. She founded Greenhouse Grant Writing in May 2020 and now has worked with over 100 nonprofits in Dallas-Fort Worth, plus those in other states and parts of Texas.

“I decided, ‘Well, what can I lose? I’m just going to see if there’s a need. I’m going to start reaching out to nonprofits in the area and see if there’s an interest and a need in grant writing assistance,’” she says. “And it turned out there was a big need for that.”

Grant writing is still Simon’s full-time job, but she was inspired to write the children’s book series on the side — Paisley Poodle Finds Courage, released this summer, and Paisley Poodle Finds His Style, which was expected to publish last month.

Meant for children ages 4-7, these self-published books focus on overcoming fear and change, respectively. Paisley feels anxious about slippery floors, fire hydrants, sidewalk grates and a new haircut but learns to move forward despite being afraid. Simon hopes the stories help parents have conversations with their children about fears and navigating emotions.

“Most kids have pets, so they understand interacting with a pet and the feelings that pets have and also experience those feelings themselves,” Simon says. “So I feel like it makes a feeling that we all have very relatable and understandable, especially for young kids, and a way that they can deal with some of these emotions in healthy ways.”

Alongside the book, Simon also crafted free activities for children related to Paisley Poodle, available monthly for those who sign up at paisleypoodle.com. And she has a YouTube channel, Adventures with Paisley Poodle, where she does readings and hosts other activities.

Simon and her husband adopted Paisley a few months after they were married and cared for him for more than a decade until he died last year. And he really was scared of fire hydrants and sidewalk grates.

“When I was teaching, so before I even started curriculum development, I had the idea Paisley Poodle would be a really cute story, but never really did anything with it,” she says. “And then after he passed last year, the idea kind of came back to me, and that’s where it kind of picked up, and I ended up coming up with his story.”

Simon didn’t initially plan to come up with the illustrations, too. She hired an artist but wasn’t satisfied with how the samples looked, so she did it herself to achieve the simple and colorful style that she wanted. And that ended up being one of her favorite parts of the over a yearlong process.

“I never really realized how much I would enjoy that,” she says. “I have no background in art. It’s nothing I’ve ever really done before, and so that’s been just really, really fun to do.”

The fact that she created her own illustrations can also be a lesson for children to indulge their creative instincts.

“Does it have to look amazing? No. I think whatever kids produce is amazing for them,” Simon says. “You don’t have to feel like it has to be perfect, or it has to look a certain way or that you’re not good enough. You can make it your own look.”

Simon described getting her book in bookstores and libraries as one of the more challenging aspects because the children’s books market is competitive and can be difficult for an unknown, new author to break out. It may take releasing a few more books for readers to get familiar with Paisley as a character, the stories and Simon before that process is easier.

“I’ve realized it’s not something that’s just going to take off overnight,” Simon says. “It’s something that’s going to be a process. I always tell my clients the same thing with grant writing. Grant writing is a process, especially if you’re new to it. You’re not just going to get funded overnight.”

She hopes the Paisley Poodle series will catch on, and she has gotten good feedback from her friends who have read the first book to their children. But Simon will be fine if it doesn’t end up being successful.

“It was about getting Paisley’s story out there,” she says, “Because even if I only impact one child, I still impact one.”

Maybe one of those children will be her own third grader, who has been supportive of her.

“I think it’s good for my son to be able to see me try something new and fail or succeed, no matter which way it goes,” Simon says. “I want to teach him that he can try anything, and he doesn’t have to be the best at it, or it doesn’t necessarily have to work out like he thought. The point is to try.”