Estelle Slootmaker, a fifth-generation Wyoming resident, decided to keep things local when it came time to write her children’s book “Places Where the Sun Don’t Shine.” She didn’t have to go far. Her husband, Edward Kurlowicz, illustrated the book and it was printed four miles from their home at Five Lakes Press on Linden Avenue SE. She met her book designer, Karen McDairmid, when she lived in Jenison.
“That’s how we live. We try to buy local as much as we can, and if we can do something local, we do it,” said Slootmaker, who spent years as a journalist for Grand Rapids Magazine, Grand Rapids Press, Rapid Growth Media and Issue Media Group. She is communications manager for Our Kitchen Table, a food justice nonprofit.
“The book came together last year,” said Slootmaker. “I had written it during Covid and was caring for my mother at that point, then my husband was burnt out doing other book projects. We love nature and wanted to portray critters in a friendly way.”
“Places Where the Sun Don’t Shine” features a mouse asking about places the sun doesn’t shine, and listing places such as “behind bee’s knees” and “behind closed doors” and “where ‘possums ride.” Each page features illustrations by Kurlowicz. The books ends with, “Places where the sun don’t shine can be so interesting!”
“I’ve always wanted to write children’s books; it’s always been on my radar,” said Slootmaker. “It’s been a dream of mine, but then there’s having to pay the bills.”
After writing poetry for years and recording random little rhymes in notebooks, plus reading her fair share of children’s books— “There’s something about Dr. Seuss”—this journalist turned her mind and heart to books for young readers.
“It’s nice to put a positive, fun spin on things, to help children learn to read, laugh, and have fun reading the book with people they love,” she said.
Slootmaker has ideas for several other children’s books, including one based on a book originally written by her great great grandmother around 1850. This current grandmother has no plans to slow down her writing, what she calls “her way of being in the world.”
“Writing for children is just fun, and I like having fun and seeing a child’s eyes light up,” she said. “It’s tough times out there, but we’ve got to keep looking for the sunshine. But the places the sun doesn’t shine are fun, too.”
