Meet Elsa!
👋🏾🌈Short stories for big feelings
When Sophia – a mom and therapist – was diagnosed with metastatic inflammatory breast cancer, we looked for books to help our young daughter understand what was happening. We wanted her to see herself and her family reflected in the story. When we couldn’t quite find it, we wrote it ourselves. Elsa’s stories grew from our family’s experience, and we hope they can make the big feelings a little easier to talk about in yours.
Elsa Extraordinary, is a children’s book series following a little girl after her mom’s cancer diagnosis. It centers the mother-daughter bond in a family of color, staying close to the everyday moments that matter.
Collect ’em all!
Best children’s books after a mom’s cancer diagnosis?
Mommy and Elsa Are Wellness Warriors: A Story About Love and Cancer is available in English and Spanish
Do you need a Mother’s Day children’s book celebrating families of all kinds? Two moms, godmothers, foster parents, moms who live in our hearts?
Mother’s Day: One Day Many Ways is perfect for you
Looking for a way to talk about death and grief with a child?
When Someone You Love Dies: A Gentle Story About Grief, Memory, and Love That Never Ends
Share the joyful celebration of Pride with your family!
This Is How We Celebrate Pride! A First Pride Book for Kids About Love and Family
YouTube Read Alouds
Come read with us on YouTube. We share storytime read-alouds of our favorite books – some written by us, like the Elsa Extraordinary series. These gentle, inclusive read-alouds are made for families navigating big feelings and changes.
🎥 New videos coming regularly—subscribe on YouTube so you don’t miss a story!
Latest blog posts
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Watch Our Story: Navigating Cancer as LGBTQIA+ Parents – Our Bright Spot Network Panel
Stories of Hope In the thick of cancer treatment, parenting young kids, and just trying to make it through the day, hearing other people’s stories…
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Why We Wrote Our Children’s Book About Cancer, “Mommy and Elsa Are Wellness Warriors”
Writing the Book We Needed Looking for a children’s book about cancer that’s gentle, honest, and inclusive? So were we. That’s why we self-published Mommy…
About Us
We’re Sophia and Mo, a married couple and moms raising our daughter and son in Southern California and the creators of Elsa Extraordinary.
Our first book began with our own family. When Sophia, a licensed marriage and family therapist, was diagnosed with metastatic inflammatory breast cancer, we went looking for books that could help our young daughter understand what was happening. We found books about cancer, but struggled to find one that reflected our family and the things our daughter was actually noticing – Mommy being tired, someone else taking care of her, routines changing, and Mommy losing her hair.
So we made the book we were looking for.
Sophia brought both her experience as a therapist and her perspective as a mom going through cancer treatment. Mo brought her background in storytelling, experience design, and bringing ideas to life. And our kids bring the most important perspective of all: what big life moments look and feel like when you’re little.
That became Mommy and Elsa Are Wellness Warriors, the first story in our Elsa Extraordinary series.
Today, Elsa’s world is growing alongside our family. Our stories feature Elsa, her little brother, and the people who love them as they navigate everything from life’s hardest changes to the everyday moments that can feel enormous to a kid. We create inclusive stories where children and families who don’t always get to see themselves on the page can feel at home – while telling stories that many different kinds of families can recognize as their own.
