The Illustration Process of 'Ladder and Friends Learn to Pray'

Cover of the children's book 'Ladder and Friends Learn to Pray' featuring a cheerful red fire truck, a blue vehicle, and a small white ambulance against a night sky with clouds and a plane flying overhead.

Background

When my son was very young we tried to do a nightly prayer with him. My mom gifted us The Little Golden Book of Prayers, but despite his love of books he was totally uninterested in it. It had very cute, precious-moments looking kids and cuddly animals. He was however, very interested in the cross-promotional Tootle the Train picture on the back cover. He would keep flipping through the book looking for the train, but alas he couldn’t find it. 😢That’s when I realized that he needed a prayer book that targets young boys—something with trucks or trains in it.

So, I started scouring Amazon for Christian books that were aimed at young boys, but I couldn’t find anything. That’s when I decided to write one. A fire truck seemed like a natural place to start as young boys like fire trucks. Plus, my dad was a firefighter, so I was pretty familiar with fire trucks. Soon I had several truck prayers written. Now Ladder and Friends Learn to Pray is becoming a reality! It’s the perfect Christian bedtime book for your toddler or preschooler!

Ladder and Friends Learn to Pray is coming Summer 2026!!! Join our pre-order mailing list so that you can be updated when Ladder and Friends Learn to Pray becomes available! Note: There is NO financial obligation at this time.

Note: Our book has six prayers as I originally envisioned a series of board books, but we found that board books are too expensive to print, so we have a 32-page picture book featuring four vehicle prayers.

The Beginning of the Journey

A firefighter in a brown uniform kneels beside a red fire truck with a smiling face, while a small teddy bear is placed in front of it. Colorful blankets are draped over the truck. The top of the image features handwritten text that reads, 'Our work is finished for the day. It's time to teach you how to pray.'

A colorful drawing featuring a red fire truck, a teddy bear, and a bed with a sleeping child. The fire truck has a green blanket draped over it, and there are 'Z's indicating sleep around the bear and the bed.

As we were looking into publishing options, I realized that publishing a book is a timely process. Yet we needed something for my son to use now, so I bought myself a little blank book off of Amazon and wrote the stanzas and drew some rough truck sketches. Although, I can do some art, mechanical objects are not my specialty, so I just drew something quickly and colorful to grab his attention, so don’t judge too harshly. 😉Even though the illustrations aren’t perfect, we still use this book every night!

The Scammer

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Although it is difficult to break into children’s book publishing, it is almost impossible to get Christian children’s books published. Most publishers do not have open submissions. Instead, they use literary agents. However, finding a literary agent is like finding a needle in a haystack and I couldn’t find a single agent that took on Christian children’s books. As I was putting my manuscript out there, an entrepreneurial publishing agency found me and offered me a contract. However, there was a catch, they didn’t provide illustrations, so we had to find and pay for an illustrator. We thought we found a perfect illustrator via a Facebook group that was within our price point, but as we were getting ready to move forward with a contract, we found out that she (or perhaps he?) wasn’t a real person!!!! We were so lucky we figured it out!

Finding and Illustrator But Losing a Publisher

After pursuing various leads with friends and family, we decided to go with an art agency. It cost us a little more, but we decided that’s better than being scammed. We went with the illustrator Steliyana Doneva who is known for books such as God’s Big Story for You by Our Daily Bread Ministries, Mighty Micah by Jane Yolen, and Journey with Jesus: An Easter Story by Ann Ingalis and the infamous Elephants Are Not Birds. Unfortunately, with entrepreneurial publishing, you need to pay a fee. With the rising cost of an illustrator, we couldn’t afford both, so we decided to spend our money on an illustrator and self-publish instead.

The Illustration Process

First Sketches

Here are the initial sketches of Ladder. We though the rectangular eyes were a little more masculine and we asked her to remove the hose intake nose because fire trucks in the United States don’t have those any more.

A collection of cartoon-style fire trucks, including one with a ladder, featuring smiling faces. A firefighter is shown interacting with a truck, covering it with a cloth.

Sketch with Firefighter

The next stage was to refine Ladder and add the firefighter!

A cartoon firefighter character in a yellow uniform standing next to a cartoon fire truck with a ladder on top, alongside two sketches of the fire truck in different styles.

Initial Final Sketches

This is our initial final sketch, but if you compare Ladder with him on the cover, you can see that he still underwent a few more changes in the process. One of the reasons was because my son really liked the hose intake nose. When I was tucking him in one night he started crying about it, so we asked her to change it to an alarm type nose that looks like a button. We have many of these types of trucks in our neighborhood.

A cheerful cartoon-style fire truck with a firefighter in a yellow uniform standing next to it. The truck has a ladder on top and is partially covered with a cloth. The image also includes black-and-white sketches of the fire truck.

Side View Preliminary Sketch 1

A fireman rescuing a cat from a tree using a ladder, while children and adults watch and cheer from the ground, surrounded by houses and trees.

Since Ladder is under a blanket in the first illustration, it was hard to see what he looked like from the side. So it wasn’t until we got to page 6 that we saw his proportions weren’t quite right. He needed to be longer. But notice the updated nose! We also noticed that in some illustrations he had a bucket and in other illustrations he did not, so we had to get rid of the bucket for consistency.

Side View Preliminary Sketch 2

A black and white illustration featuring a firefighter using a ladder to save a cat from a tree while children watch in admiration. In the background, there are houses and trees, with some kids holding hands and observing the scene. There is also a text box with a reflective question about selflessness.

Now he was longer in Preliminary Sketch 2, but he lost his fire-truck look. He looked more like a city bus, so my illustrator went back to the drawing board. You will also notice that some of the rest of the background shifted and changed along the way.

Side View Preliminary Sketch 3

A firefighter rescuing a cat from a tree using a ladder, while children and bystanders watch and express concern and support, with houses and trees in the background.

We finally had our perfect Ladder! Isn’t he cute?!? 😍

Final Illustrations

Here is the final illustration from the first scene of the book. Enjoy! Don’t you just love the dog and the stuffed lion!

Illustration from a children's book titled 'Ladder Learns to Pray', featuring a firefighter and a friendly fire truck under a blanket, a lion and a dog nearby, and a locker room background with firefighting equipment.

Amby, Semi, and Jet

A colorful cartoon scene featuring three vehicles: a blue garbage truck named Amby, a red and white ambulance, and a small orange and white airplane named Jet, set against a scenic landscape with a blue sky and clouds. — Note: Although the illustrated characters are from the book, the background image is not!

Do you want to see Ladder’s friends? Meet Amby who learns about helping others. Semi has to persevere and be faithful during long road trips, and Jet has to learn how to obey God and encourage others on his journey.

Ladder and Friends Learn to Pray is coming Summer 2026!!!! Sign-up for our pre-order mailing list and be the first to learn when it becomes available for purchase. There is NO financial obligation at this time.

Join My Launch Team

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Do you believe in my mission of helping young boys to learn to pray? Then I need your help! Join my launch team for Ladder and Friends Learn to Pray!

Requirements of Launch Team Member

Read the eBook/PDF before the launch date.
Leave an honest review before launch day.
Share the Ladder and Friends Learn to Pray on with friends and on your social media platforms.
Pray that God will use the book to grow young hearts.
Optional: Join the FB group and share launch ideas with the launch team.
Optional: Take a picture of yourself or someone else (with their permission) reading or holding the book.
Optional: Pre-order a book and buy a copy for a friend!

Note: I will be sending out specific instructions on how to do these steps closer to the launch date.

Share and Subscribe

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The Illustration Process of Ladder in ‘Ladder and Friends Learn to Pray’

Background

The Beginning of the Journey

The Scammer

Finding and Illustrator But Losing a Publisher