It begins...

Today I was able to briefly pitch my ideas for my pre major project. It's a children's book about veganism.

The basic structure is this:

A little non-vegan girl gets lost in the woods (or somewhere else to be confirmed) and happens upon a community of vegan, mythical creatures. They tell her about their way of life and explain to her the moral significance of animals. She then leaves and tries to live vegan, but is confronted with the usual arguments that vegans are frequently bombarded with. Due to this, she becomes disillusioned and returns to the creatures, wanting to live with them rather than the closed minded majority. They explain to her that she NEEDS to be integrated with society in order to help change the world.

I've taken on-board the criticisms and suggestions, such as to be aware of over-complicating the message.
While I understand that, I need to be clear that this isn't going to be another book that tells you to be nice to animals. It will be a book that informs children of WHY, if we care about animals morally, we cannot justify their use. Therefore, a level of "complication" is necessary. The word vegan MUST be used, because it is essential to bringing veganism into mainstream consciousness. Veganism isn't a complex idea in itself, but confronting societal norms is never a straight forward task.

For the record, the story isn't complicated, it's pretty straight forward but Joel expressed concerns about a "back and forth" between the real world and meeting these mythical creatures. To counter this, rather than have the child want to go back and live with the creatures AFTER returning home, she can be given the advice BEFORE she leaves, therefore she has no need to visit the creatures again.

I suppose I need to think more about my intentions...
I would like for vegans to buy this book to introduce their children into the ideology behind veganism. I would also like for vegans to buy this book for non-vegan parents. Although, thinking about it, that might not actually work so well.
Maybe subtlety IS key. If I want non-vegans to change then perhaps a book that doesn't immediately alienate (I hate that term in this context) non-vegans is a good idea. I suppose I will have to think about this a little more and find examples of other children's books that discuss similar things. Here are some contemporary examples by Author and Illustrator Ruby Roth.

On a side note - I want this to be addressed in the story...

"Lisa, this is LAMB, not A LAMB." - Homer Simpson

I want the child to be questioning the difference between the unidentifiable animal products that she consumes/uses and the real life animals that are exploited as a result.

So this is a huge introductory post! Now let's move forward with the project!