Woes of a Really, Very Bad Haircut

The first book in The Sonshine Sister Club series, “Woes of a Really, Very Bad Haircut”, introduces you to Miranda Hope Wilson, more fondly known as Andie. She’s ten-years-old, homeschooled, has two older brothers, and has a lot of emotions.Andie has just experienced her first bad haircut and it has made a big problem of things. First of all, she doesn’t feel like herself. Secondly, none of her friends have short hair and she feels set apart, and not in a good way. She used to love her life which includes homeschooling, cooking, crafting, reading, and meeting with her friends weekly for The Sonshine Sister Club. It’s a club her and four other friends started to help one another grow closer to Jesus, but with her new haircut she begins to feel all sorts of awful things about herself, her friends, and even Jesus. Will Andie figure out how to grow through her terrible circumstances before her hair grows out? Or will she allow a bad haircut to ruin everything?Note from the AuthorThe Sonshine Sister Club series is an idea that came to me one day while I was driving my youngest daughter to and from her dance class. My girls love to read and consume books almost as fast as I consume coffee! She was in the seat behind me, reading her book, when the idea for The Sonshine Sister Club suddenly burst inside my brain. That’s how it often happens for me in my writing—an intense realization that I need to get to my computer and write something down. We are a homeschooling family and in my search for books to add to our library I realized there are very limited books available that feature a homeschooled main character that my girls can relate to. I beta read all my books with my girls and when I first said the words “homeschool co-op” out loud while reading a scene, my daughter perked up and exclaimed, “We go to homeschool co-op, too!”In that moment I realized I was onto something. This book series was needed, even if it was just for my girls.My girls laughed through the stories of Andie, her friends, and her family—especially the scenes with Andie’s older brother, Levi. There is family tension, lots of emotions, and real life in these pages. I wanted a series that felt realistic, and while there are times my own children don't make the best decisions (not that I always do either!), no child or adult is perfect. We can strive to become more like Jesus just like the Sonshine Sisters do, but we make mistakes along the way. That’s what I wanted in these books. I wanted Andie and her friends to make mistakes and to learn lessons on how to become more like Jesus through them.If you loved The Babysitter’s Club growing up and loved the emotional turmoil of Judy Moody, but you want a focus of Jesus and the rare homeschooled main character—these books are for you and your children!Not all the girls in The Sonshine Sister Club are homeschooled. Between the five girls there are varied school and church choices. I think this is important because we can get so caught up in dividing one another based on our choices that we forget Jesus loves us all and we all can become more like Him in our circumstances.This is an ongoing series where I hope to follow Andie and her friends from 5th grade through 8th grade as they navigate through what can often be a difficult time in life.