The Story Behind Cloud Islands

I live with my two special needs boys – the oldest with ASD/OCD and the youngest with ADHD and severe emotional dysregulation.

When they were very young, as a means of settling them at bedtime (a struggle for all parents), I began telling them bedtime stories and I’ve continued this for several years now. The stories began as simple twists on classics like The Three Little Pigs and Jack and the Beanstalk, but quickly began incorporating the boys as main characters. Pretty soon, reoccurring characters began popping up – these characters became staples at bedtime, so much so that I could simply make a grunt sound like Professor B or talk in the accent of Cowboy Jim and they would know who the character was without explicitly saying.

With the boys growing quickly and beginning to encounter the early questions of life, I found the bedtime stories as crucial tools for developing understanding within my kids. I quickly adopted metaphor as a primary parenting device, which often led to questions after stories (sometime not accomplishing the original goal of settling them down).

At the time the stories began, I was married to their mother. Years into the stories, her and I began having difficulty. We’d always struggled one way or another – finances, direction, communication – but, after over a decade of marriage, her mental illness began taking over her decision making and we soon after divorced.

The boys had difficulty processing and understanding what was going on. I was depressed and the metaphors of the stories were reflecting that. I would attempt to explain what was happening in their mother and in our departure from each other in the stories, which would oftentimes describe the worlds that were once vibrant and silly as desolate and bleak.

And then I just ran out of ideas.

It was probably the depression that clouded my head, but I spoke to Elliott, the oldest, one night when he asked for a story saying, “I’m just storied out.” Of course, he wouldn’t have it – his very special mind had come to rely on stories to transition into sleep. Without a story, he would sit in his bed, awake, for hours as his mind obsessed about something he was stuck on. His brother, Oliver, would also stay awake, through sheer energetic force, just because the nightly schedule had been altered.

So, to provide something, I brought in the aid of The Wizard of Oz, which I’d never actually read before. We went through one chapter per night. The two loved the story being continued from the previous night and would sometimes ask questions throughout the day or make comments like, “I wonder what’s going to happen in the story tonight.”

There was a facepalm moment when I thought, “Why haven’t I done continual stories before? It’s easier to get back into and I can develop one big idea, rather than a new idea every night.”

So, when we finished Oz, we began the story of the Cloud Islands. The story very quickly became not only an escape for the boys, but for myself as well. To tell the truth, by the end of the entire story, which spanned over many months, I wondered if they were more excited to hear the story or if I was more excited to tell it.

As their mother moved from our house and regular life changed around them, the events and figures in the Cloud Islands provided subtle explanations.

The story, the places, and the characters not only gave some insight into the greater world around them through metaphor – they provided insight into themselves as well. Oliver's character would often react to situations and change in the story as he would in real life. This provided a view of himself to reflect on, which is important for individuals with ADHD. Perhaps the greatest theme of the story is that of Elliott’s courage, and as a young boy on the spectrum with obsessive compulsions, overcoming fear and doubt is something often difficult. Having an image specifically of himself doing so gives him a positive self-image and increase in optimism.

The story also worked magic in myself. As soon as I realized the core plot was something worth telling, I sketched an entire arc and some of the subsequent details. However, the story itself took over and went down every fork that was necessary to uncover all the mysteries of the Cloud Islands – some of which I didn’t know until the story was unfolding. Allowing this flow took me to a place of overcoming life’s trials during a trying and difficult time, as well.

As the three of us soared through fantastic mysteries in the clouds over those months, our world changed, and we adjusted. We finally came to the end of the story, which left us all excited – the story definitely failed at putting them to sleep that night, myself included.

As soon as it was completed, I began committing it to page. I resketched the outline, now with all the details we discovered in the telling of the story, smoothed over a few details, and dove right in. I had Elliott as a “fact-checker” for the story details. I’d read him parts of the story for his approval before saving. Wanting to add some material, I decided it would span over three books.

Still, with the nuances of orally telling the story impossible to transfer to text, I needed something to show- thus, the illustration of the story began.

Finding an appropriate style of illustration was much more difficult than I imagined. I studied graphic design right out of high school and, though I could come up with many completely different illustration types for the story, none of them seemed to fit. I was looking through different styles of existing children’s and middle-grade literature, but nothing fit right. Finally, I started with a blank slate, took some pictures of the boys, and designed the look as if it were something for a more mature audience than young children – and it fit.

Soon after, the art just began flowing.

The first book was completed just months after the story had been told. Now, the line the boys had heard every night for several years was available for a broader audience:

Once upon a time, there were two boys named Elliott and Oliver…

I’m currently seeking representation to get the story published to a greater audience than I can reach. It’s a story that invites inclusion and conversation about differences in people. It’s a segway for children making their ways through the trials of growing up in the world today. The Cloud Island world challenges children to think critically about the world and not put everything into strict parameters – it’s the critical thinking lessons that tend to be missing in education otherwise.

The completed first book can be found at cloudislandsstory.com