Neighbor Linda Goodwin’s new illustrated book was some 30 years in the making. In 1979 Goodwin took a graduate class called “Health Science for Teachers”, in which her assignment was to review a children’s book.
“I reviewed a ‘where-did-I-come-from’ story that explained in kid-friendly detail and cartoon illustrations how babies got started,” she says. It was “accurate and adorable”, describing an uncomfortable subject in a way she applauded.
But she wanted to take the topic further. Where do we come from before the egg was fertilized? That’s how Goodwin, whose pen name is Linda LoveGarten, got the basic idea for her book, “Caleb’s Journey to Earth”, which she self-published last year. She didn’t pick up the idea again until 1983, when her daughter, Paloma, was 11 years old.
Goodwin had not since conceived another child, and one “hot, sentimental night”, she wrote a poem, “Letter to a Son Not Born, But Nevertheless”. By that September, she was pregnant with her son, Evan.
And a piece of her book was done, but Goodwin was a middle school teacher at Dealey Montessori Vanguard, where she taught for 17 years, and mother of two — too busy for her own artwork. The night in 1995 when her grandson, Caleb, was born, an image came to her, and she set out to paint it. It turned out to be a “celestial family portrait” and, although she didn’t know it, the basis for the cover for her book.
She made four more paintings inspired by Caleb’s birth before she remembered her book plans from years earlier. Slowly, she began to weave her poems into prose that described the paintings. “Four paintings became eight, then 10, then 12,” she says.
She and her husband, Richard Goodwin, retired two years ago, which gave her time to finish the book. “Women love it. Men, like my husband, for instance, are like, ‘I don’t get it,’ ” she says. “It has a very spiritual message. The book starts when he’s still in the heavens. And that’s very real to me.”
Goodwin, who taught middle school Spanish, exploratory science and art, wants to translate the book into Spanish. After that, she’d like to create an audio version with Caleb, who is now 15. The book costs $15 in paperback and $26 in hardcover. It is available at lovegarten.com.
