Eastern Henrico woman pens children's book in time for daughter's first birthday

In March 2020, the month that the World Health Organization declared COVID-19 a pandemic, 27-year-old Eastern Henrico resident Jasmin Merdach gave birth to her daughter, Lilly. Just a year later, she has written and published a book in time for her daughter’s first birthday.

Just before becoming a mother, Merdach (a biology major at Virginia Commonwealth University) had left her job as a lab technologist at Salveo Diagnostics Lab.

"I went to school with the intention of studying pharmacy," Merdach said. "I realized halfway through the semester that it was not for me. My experience as a pharmacy technician helped make that decision. I left work in the beginning of the third trimester of my pregnancy because I wanted to enjoy and embrace my new role as a mother."

Motherhood occupied much of Merdach's time, but she continued following her passion for science and began teaching for Outschool, an online teaching platform. Under lockdown, Merdach and her daughter rarely left the house, and her husband only left to pick up essentials.

"The pandemic has affected us, because Lilly is unable to do things I used to do as a child," Merdach said, "such as going to a playground and making friends. I am a little wary of being too close to people or being in crowds to avoid any chances of Lilly being exposed to the virus."

Within the six months after Lilly's birth, Merdach decided that she wanted to do something special for her first birthday.

One night, while rocking Lilly to sleep in one arm, Merdach began drafting a book for her daughter using her phone in the other hand. Her idea was to make Lilly the main character, and that way, she could cherish the book for life.

It was in that moment that “Lilly, The Little Scientist and Germs" was conceived. The book explores germs and helps children learn some basic ways to avoid them and stay healthy.

"Me and my daughter, we read books — on average, about six books a day," Merdach said. "I want other kids to read just as much as she does. She loves reading, and I think that also helped me decide that I want to be a writer."

After that night, Merdach began looking for resources online that would help her idea become a reality by Lilly's first birthday. While writing the story, she looked to Facebook groups with children's book authors to find an illustrator. Merdach knew the type of illustrations that she wanted and finally found an illustrator from the Philippines named Frances Rose Español.

"Once I figured out the way I wanted my drawings, I was literally scanning through the Facebook groups," Merdach said. "I'm like, 'Oh, I don't like this.’ ‘I don't like this.' I got so many offers, but with her it was like I couldn't forget her illustrations. That's when I knew that she is my Illustrator."

On the cover of the book, there's an illustration of Lilly in front of a blue background. Floating around her and the title are happy, little germs and bacterium. Merdach and her husband decided that the title itself would be written in rainbow colors because Lilly was a rainbow baby, born after a previous miscarriage.

In the month that followed, Merdach created Lillian Books LLC, EIN and copyright for protection. She found a local printing company, and then registered her book through the Library of Congress, which took about two weeks. This assigned her book a Library of Congress number, ISBN and P-CIP.

The layout and formatting of the book was a little more challenging. For several weeks, Merdach looked for a reasonable formatting team but was met with groups that didn't exactly fit her needs.

"I think as far as layout and design and formatting, I'm sure there's a bunch out there, but I just couldn't find any, especially in the author-illustrator group," Merdach said. "I was having a hard time finding that for me."

By then, her illustrations were complete, and it took another two weeks to finalize exactly where the text would sit on each page. The last step was publishing, which Merdach did through the Carter Printing Company over the course of a week.

Merdach published “Lilly, The Little Scientist and Germs" on March 15, the day of Lilly's first birthday. This is Merdach's first book in a series that will cover science topics. It can be found on Amazon.