Growing into You!
An Inclusive, Shame-Busting, Get-Real Guide to Your Changing Body and Mind
For “Growing Into You” I created over 50 interior spot illustrations and the cover illustration. Each tween depicted in the book is a unique character as the team wanted to ensure the book was inclusive, accessible, and shame-free to be a comfortable and relatable resource to all tweens.
It was such an honor to have this project as an illustrator and a really fun challenge to create many unique representations of tweens!
“Full of practical guidance, interactive learning, Q&As on the topics that real kids are asking about, and adorable illustrations, this is exactly what a child needs as they grow into themselves!”
Creative Brief:
A tween standing between two angry looking friends.
Creative Brief: A scene of three different kid/adult duos, like a dad and son, a nonbinary kid with a queer adult, and a grandmother and granddaughter. They should be interacting in different ways—maybe one pair is conversing, another pair is throwing a football, another pair is hugging.
Creative Brief: Three or four kids of different gender identities, doing different activities like gaming, drawing, reading, playing a sport. *One of these kids is a portrait of the author's child!
Creative Brief: Depict 4-5 kids of different gender expressions, in different stages of puberty, posing and looking fabulous. A few of the kids are wearing sexuality and gender pins or other accessories or waving a flag.
Creative Brief: Tweens at varying heights, looking happy, with their arms around each other or playfully comparing heights.
Creative Brief: Four kids doing different activities, like bicycling, walking, a wheelchair user playing basketball, and yoga.
Creative Brief: Several queer tweens at Pride, waving rainbow flags and hugging each other or otherwise celebrating; their gender expression (clothing, hair, etc) clearly give them joy.
Creative Brief: Tweens trying on different outfits and having fun.
Creative Brief: A tween journaling. Their phone is flipped over and being ignored.
Creative Brief: A tween looking curiously over the shoulders of two other tweens who are laughing at a video on their phone.
Creative Brief: Two kids hugging.
Creative Brief: Two tweens with their arms around each other, taking a silly selfie together or two hands wearing BFFs Forever friendship bracelets.