Willie’s Dad is a picture book for children who have parents in Prison. Willie is a five year old boy whose father has been in prison almost his whole life and who will be there until he’s a grown man. Willie and his Mother don’t visit his Father very often and when they do, they go with Duane, who is growing attached to Willie’s mom. His father makes a selfless decision and tells Duane to go ahead and marry the mother because Willie needs a dad and he’s a good man.
The story is pretty good and it’s nice to see a book for children on a subject not often seen. Unfortunately there are quite a few children who have a parent in prison and who could use this book.
However, the book is self-published with the help of Lulu and the illustrations are clearly drawn with coloured pencils by Naima Abdul-Haqq and so the book looks very unprofessional. I suppose this is no problem to some people but I prefer my books to look clean, aligned and professional. Also the part about his mom remarrying excludes those children whose parents are in prison for only a few years. If that were the case with me, I would be looking for a different book for my child as I wouldn’t want them to think I was moving on without their dad if I wasn’t.
Overall I think the story could have been a little better and the illustrations should have been done differently, but the author has good idea. I would suggest he work on his book more and try to get it republished at a later date.
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