Meggan Monday: Children’s author Natalie Guess
This week, we are excited to introduce you to Natalie Guess, an author in Hancock County who just completed her first children’s book called ‘The Biggest, the Oldest, the Strongest…All Eat Plants.”
Her loveable characters take children on a fantastic adventure, discovering all the plants they can eat to help them grow up big and strong.
Those ‘plant powered pals’ proved to be quite popular, helping push the book to the top of the charts on Amazon’s hot new releases.
“So, I didn’t really have any major expectations going into it. And so, when I woke up the next morning and it was number one under Amazon’s hot new releases, I was really blown away. It was unexpected. If you think about the number of books that are out there and the number of books probably published every single day, it was a very pleasant surprise, and I’m extremely grateful. A children’s book is something I’ve wanted to do for a long time. And I’ve been working on it for about two years. I really wanted to incorporate how to teach children or talk about eating plants or incorporating more plants, fruits and veggies in children’s diets.”
“When you think about the largest, so the biggest, oldest and strongest in the jungle, predominantly they eat plants. So, you have the African Bush Elephant, the Silverback Gorilla and the Galapagos Tortoise. They live long, healthy lives, and predominately I would say over 90% of their diet is eating fruits and veggies in the Forrest. Kantu, Tamu, and Bali And so it talks about how big they are, how much they weigh, how much food they eat every day, and what they actually eat in their diets in the jungle and how it correlates to what we can eat and incorporate into our daily foods.”
“A lot of people don’t realize how versatile plants and beans and nuts are. We have over 80 million different varieties, you know, so the food’s not boring. It just takes a little bit of creativity to create, you know what your meal is going to be. But a lot of plants and nuts have more protein than animal protein. So, you could actually eat less and get more healthy, nutrient dense protein in your diet. Kids want fruits and vegetables. I mean all kids eat fruit for the most part. But if you kind of share the message that you can grow big and strong and they see these cartoon characters, the jungle animals that there is all truth and what I’m putting in the book. So, I think it’s important to instill that into children at an early age and just kind of help guide them into making the better healthier choices when it comes to what they’re putting into their body.”
A successful recipe for health and happiness. You can pick up a copy of Natalie’s book at Mockingbird Café in Bay St. Louis as well as Bay Life Gifts and Book Century Hall next door.
