New Ellicottville-Themed Children’s Book “Flora the Fox & Friends” Now Available at Kazoo II
New Ellicottville-Themed Children’s Book “Flora the Fox & Friends” Now Available at Kazoo II
Meet Flora the Fox and her friends in a heartwarming new children’s book inspired by the Hatswell family’s love for skiing in Ellicottville.
With Halloween in the rearview mirror, ski season is fast approaching! For those anticipating little ones hitting the slopes for the first time or looking for a cozy read to share with children or grandchildren, Michelle and Keith Hatswell’s brand new children’s book, Flora the Fox & Friends: Ski Ellicottville, NY, is for you! Inspired in part by their foreign exchange student who learned to ski for the first time with their family, the Hatswells endeavored to create a children’s book to celebrate skiing in Ellicottville. The result is an adventure-filled story that is available now at Kazoo II, located at 18 Washington St. in Ellicottville.
The Hatswells’ first book, Flora the Fox shares the story of Flora, Benny the Bear, Sammy the Squirrel, and Danny the Deer who enjoy skiing and snowboarding in wintry Ellicottville, New York. While many may assume the book reflects the Hatswells’ life-long love of skiing, Michelle pointed out that it wasn’t until 2018 that her family embraced the slopes. “In 2018, we offered to host a foreign exchange student from Sicily through our rotary club, and so she was staying with us over the winter,” Hatswell explained. “We had her most of the school year, and she wanted to learn to ski… and we did not want to learn to ski! We tried skiing before and hated it, but a good friend of ours in the rotary club said, ‘Oh no, we’re going to make a ski family out of you!’”
One weekend at Holiday Valley changed everything for the family, who learned how to ski and have been doing so together ever since!
“It was kind of due to our foreign exchange student, Flora, who we named the book after,” Hatswell explained. Following the pandemic, the Hatswells bought a home in Ellicottville and started renting out the lower apartment. Hatswell recalled, “We wanted to have children’s books and things like that for kids to play with while they were here. We wanted it to be a family-friendly place, because we liked the idea of skiing being something the family can do together. We looked all over for good children’s skiing books, and we could not find one!”
The couple decided to write their own book, which dovetailed nicely with Keith’s entrepreneur’s group at the University at Buffalo. Michelle noted that another person involved in the group, Anthony M. DeSimone, runs a master class for AI and thought it’d be a fun venture to utilize the tool for developing the illustrations for the book. “It took about a year of working with the images,” Michelle explained. “My husband has a printing business, so he has an art department there for doing all of the graphic arts for labels, so whatever AI couldn’t quite get perfect, he gave to the art department to clean it up, do the layout, and more… It took a really long time and a lot of effort but it was a really fun, interesting project in that respect.”
Michelle, who is an English teacher, and Keith co-wrote the text and are excited that the book is now in the hands of readers. The couple, who are from Akron, had their first printing in September and shared their book on social media. They were thrilled to hear from Arleen Solly, owner of Kazoo II, who was interested in carrying the book in her store. “I had given her the books the Monday before Fall Fest, and on Thursday, she called me and said, ‘I’m running out of books!’” After delivering more books to Kazoo II, the Hatswells are now considering a second printing, especially with the holiday season approaching.
For Solly, carrying Flora the Fox was a natural move, given the wide variety of unique gifts and books her store is known for. “I look for anything about Ellicottville, and if it’s something worthwhile, I pursue it,” Solly explained. “I always try to promote local themes, local writers and projects. I carry a ton of books, and people do come here for books! We don’t have a bookstore, but I sort of take the place of it.”
Make Flora the Fox part of your library: visit Kazoo II, which is open daily from 10:00am-5:00pm (6:00pm on Saturdays).
As for the real-life Flora behind the book? “We sent her a couple of copies,” said Hatswell. “Her parents freaked out! It was so cute.”
There may be more fun in store for fans of Flora the Fox, as the Hatswells are considering future books that celebrate Ellicottville and the surrounding area in the non-ski season, too. “We just wanted to have something for kids and families to read together that would be special,” said Hatswell, “and to personalize it to Ellicottville, because obviously that’s close to our heart.”