Michelle Ferguson-Cohen

Michelle Ferguson-Cohen
Born	Ft. Benning, United States
Occupation	author, illustrator, publisher
Genre	Children's books
Notable works	Daddy, You're My Hero!
Website
www.booksforbrats.com

Michelle Ferguson-Cohen is a children's book author, illustrator and publisher. Her father is a career military officer and Vietnam veteran. As a military brat herself, many of the picture books she develops are written for and feature military brats.

Career

Ferguson-Cohen wrote, illustrated and published the first commercially available children's books for military brats.^[1] and the first children's picture books for children coping with deployment.^[2][3] She has been called the "Dr. Seuss for Military Brats" in a Washington Times article that was laudatory in tone about her books' ability to help children understand about their parent's military deployments.^[4]

Ferguson-Cohen established Little Redhaired Girl Publishing to publish her books as part of a series she entitled Books for Brats to encourage pride in the term "Military Brat" outside the military community. Ferguson-Cohen's goal was to create material that would appeal to all children and introduce their military family neighbors. Though self-published, her titles "Daddy, You're My Hero!" and "Mommy, You're My Hero!" have reportedly reached hundreds of thousands of youthful readers^[5] through both targeted and broad based marketing. They were first published in 2001 and are in their 3rd edition.^[1] The books have also been used in the classrooms as material to promote tolerance and understanding amongst peers, and distributed to both commercial and civilian outlets.^[6]

Books for Brats were early to recognize and service the "suddenly military" families of the National Guard and Reserves.^[7] During the first deployments of the Iraq War, Ferguson-Cohen worked with Family Readiness Groups nationwide to host readings.^{[8][9][10][11][12]} She was able to obtain recommendations by many educational, medical and child development experts^[13] suggesting that her books could be utilized to explain deployment and convey coping skills to children facing separation from a parent.^[14][15][16] They are also suggested as resources for their unique content, multicultural illustrations and representations of female soldiers.^[17]

Sought out by the press as an expert in the military community,^{[18][19][20][21]} she became an advocate for military brats promoting equal representation for the military community in the media.

Prior to her career as children's author and advocate for military brats, Ferguson-Cohen was a music industry entrepreneur^[22] who owned an agency based in New York and London. During her career in the entertainment industry she was involved celebrity charity events to raise funds for UK-based NGO War Child. A writer and humorist, she is listed as a contributor to the Complete Idiot's Guide to Jokes.^[23]

References

Bibliography

• Daddy, You're My Hero! (Little Redhaired Girl Publishing, 2001,) ISBN 978-0-9729264-4-7
• Mommy, You're My Hero! (Little Redhaired Girl Publishing, 2001,) ISBN 978-0-9729264-3-0
• Walk This Way, New York Magazine

External links

• Books for Brats website