Rozillia's Dream

This GO FUND ME campaign is to financially support the work of Rozillia MH, who is illustrating the book: Dr. Rosie Helps The Animals. The book will be published by Waterbear Publishing in 2022. Money generated from this campaign goes directly to Rozillia, as an advance for her work. Thank you for any amount you can give during this challenging time in history! Please share this with friends.... there is power in numbers!

About Rozillia

Rozillia MH (also known as Mahdia Hunt) is an African American illustrator, writer, and educator. While attending the University of Massachusetts Amherst, she developed a thrill for traveling and learning about different cultures. In 2018, she received a Bachelor’s degree in Linguistics and continued to travel to numerous countries. She values the experiences and the perspectives she has gathered from all walks of life. However, it is evident that there are not enough positive stories concerning young girls of color. It is her biggest aspiration to create children’s books for little girls of color.

About the Book: Dr. Rosie Helps The Animals

Jennifer Welborn, the author, is a Science teacher at Amherst Regional Middle School in Amherst, MA. She conceived of the story nearly four years ago, when her partner, Dr. Carlos Gradil, sent her an image of a baby giraffe with a neck bandage. This made Jennifer think about other animals with exaggerated body parts who have common afflictions that children experience and became the concept for her book

The story follows the adventures of Dr. Rosie, as she travels the world to see her patients: a rabbit with an earache; a crocodile with a toothache; and an octopus with a bump on its head to name a few… The character of Dr. Rosie is an amalgam of three real- life veterinarians: Dr. Carlos Gradil and his daughters Drs. Ana and Kayla Gradil who provided the science behind the symptoms, diagnoses and treatments of several of the animals’ afflictions.   

Two years ago, Jennifer was offered a contract for the manuscript from a large publishing company in New York, but declined since she wanted more control of the book.  She needed to find an illustrator and as luck would have it, Rozillia was working as an educator in Jennifer’s Science classroom.

For one of her lessons, Jennifer asked her students to draw what the particles that make up things might look like if they could actually be seen. Rozillia created the image below as a model for the students to reference.

When Jennifer saw this illustration, she realized Rozillia’s style was EXACTLY what she had envisioned for her book so she asked if Rozillia would consider being the illustrator. Rozillia thankfully said, "Yes!" and mentioned that being a children's book illustrator was a life dream.

For over a year now, Rozillia (in her “free time”) has put many hours into concept illustrations for the book, some of which are shown below.

COVID restrictions have enabled Rozillia to devote herself to working on completing the 38 final, colored illustrations for the book. The first one completed thus far, showcases Rozillia’s talent for creating beautiful illustrations which captivate children. 

We are eternally grateful for your contribution and can't wait to share this book when it becomes available through Waterbear Publishing.

~ Rozillia MH and Jennifer Welborn