St. Edmund’s Nursery School board member Lindsey Wyman, shown with 5-month-old daughter Lily, has autographed copies of her Wilmer the Whale children’s books that are for sale at the Monogrammed Home and San Marino Toy & Book Shoppe.
If you’re looking for some wholesome holiday fun for your toddler, you need look no further than your local store.
At both the Monogrammed Home and San Marino Toy & Book Shoppe, you can find copies of the Wilmer the Whale children’s books, each autographed by author Lindsey Wyman, a board member at St. Edmund’s Nursery School here in town. In addition to the original “Wilmer the Whale Goes to the Beach,” the holiday-themed “Wilmer the Whale Halloween” and “Wilmer the Whale Thanksgiving” are also available for purchase.
“I think I might start thinking about a Valentine’s one,” Wyman said in an interview. “For kids, I feel like a holiday book is a nice way to show them what a holiday is about, and we’re reading them together almost every night.”
An attorney, Wyman said she first embarked on authoring the books last year with her own children in mind. She published the first book in September 2019, and then followed up with the next ones in October and November of that year.
“Some of my co-workers were laughing when they found out,” she said. “It’s been fun. It’s been a great project. It’s definitely been a nice break from being an attorney and it’s a fun thing to share with the kids.”
In conceptualizing the stories, Wyman said she ultimately spent a lot of time toying with prose at her desk. Thinking of the characters and setting came relatively easily, she said, when she considered what her own children liked.
“When I was trying to figure out a character, I figured you can do so much with sea animals. My kids are so interested in sea animals and it’s a whole other world down there,” she explained. “[When writing,] I feel like it’s kind of sitting for a couple of hours and thinking. I wanted it to rhyme, so kids could remember the books better.”
By writing the books, Wyman, who lives in Pasadena, said she also hoped to set an example for her children to try out new things. Indeed, the description for “Wilmer the Whale Goes to the Beach” notes that Wilmer faces the anxiety of making his first foray there and thus overcomes his own fears of new and unknown things.
“It was a fun project, no pressure whatsoever,” she said.
