About the Community
Planet Hero Kids is a community of kids and parents striving to help save the planet by cultivating a sense of hope, opportunity and awe in young children as they become aware of the climate challenges that we all now face. Climate anxiety is real and the best way to help alleviate it within children is through action.
Our focus is to spread positivity among children by demonstrating that, through the superpower of kindness, they can be enablers of climate and social impacts that help to heal the planet. Secondarily, our purpose is to help accelerate the transition to renewable energy solutions in a manner that involves empathy and kindness to all.
Spreading kindness, like jam on toast!
About the Books
Steve and Eve is a magically-illustrated graphic novel book series that helps address the challenges of this climate change era, while inspiring children with adventure, laughter, and hope.
The first book in the series is the creation of authors Paul Shore and Deborah Katz Henriquez, and their talented illustrator Prashant Miranda. The creative trio recognize the need for engaging young children in climate action, through lighthearted story-telling and art that cultivates hope and a sense of opportunity.
Planet Hero Kids graphic novels will delight and inspire young readers. Children will experience the thrill of adventure, while becoming empowered by the realization that every act of kindness can help to heal the planet and all of its creatures.
In the first book in the series, I Can Hear Your Heart Beep, readers are introduced to Steve, a kooky polar bear with a magical power gifted to him by the Northern Lights, and Eve, a feisty electric car who wants to change the world. This 200-page illustrated work-of-art is available in paperback, hardcover, and e-book formats.
We invite you and your kids to sign up to the Planet Hero Kids team to follow Steve and Eve as their adventures unfold and of course to buy the first book in the series.
Spreading kindness, like jam on toast!
I Can Hear Your Heart Beep
About The Authors & Illustrator of book#1
Paul Shore is an award-winning author and accomplished business professional and engineer who has always embraced adventure and exploring nature with children. Born and raised in Ottawa, Paul moved to the west coast after graduating from Queen’s University and has since worked around the globe in high technology, sport, and healthcare. He has developed electric vehicle teaching resources for elementary schools and sits on the board of Ecology Project International, assisting to bring science-focused conservation programs to students and teachers. Paul's travel memoir, Uncorked, won the 2017 Whistler Independent Book Award for Non-Fiction. Recently, Paul wrote a 4-part series of op-eds for Canada’s National Observer — Beyond The Climate Crisis Gloom and Doom.
Deborah Katz Henriquez is a children's author, illustrator, and educator who uses nature as a lens to inspire and illuminate our understanding of the world. Deborah’s picture book about nature and diversity, Rare is Everywhere, won the 2018 Vine Award for Children’s Literature and was subsequently translated into French, Spanish, and Arabic. Deborah grew up in New York City and studied environmental science at Cornell University before moving to Canada and becoming a nursing professor. In her hometown of Vancouver, she writes, makes art, and lives with her human and canine family.
Prashant Miranda grew up in Bangalore, studied at the National Institute of Design, India, and moved to Canada in 1999. He designed children's animated shows for TV in Toronto before moving on to pursue his passions as an artist. He spends time in the coastal rainforests on the west coast of Canada now, where he travels and documents his life through his watercolor journals, animates films, teaches visual art, illustrates children's books and paints murals.
About our Journey
The spark that started our Planet Hero Kids journey first became visible when my pyjama-wearing 8 year-old daughter spontaneously hugged an electric car! That day of our first EV test drive, my daughter laid her little body on the car’s hood with arms outstretched across it, and with one ear against the smooth metal she said, “she has a heart beat”. The fact that the car seemed calm, gentle, and fun — quiet; cool to the touch; not “stinky”; and “zoomy” smooth — seemed to tell her that the machine was as friendly as a family pet.
The realization that young children intuitively understand what is healthier for them and the planet, sent me in search of partners to help create an uplifting climate action kids book that would cultivate hope and a sense of opportunity during the challenging era in which our children find themselves growing up. A book featuring an EV, yet not a book about EVs — rather playing to the fact that many kids find cars fun and that a story featuring a car who is trying to fix the planet, along with an unlikely polar bear friend, would surely stimulate thought among kids. The concept resonated with my new writing friend Deborah Katz Henriquez and off we went collaborating on ideas and writing a script for a first book. Serendipity brought us David Adams’ ability to tease the best story possible out of us; Charles Holmes’ continuous encouragement to make ripples; and eventually the magic artistry of Prashant Miranda’s brush strokes. And here we are several years, 12000 words, and 700 illustrations later, sharing Steve and Eve and their climate action adventures with the world!
Thank you to all the family and friends who have helped to propel us forward on this journey into the genre of children’s Cli-Fi.
Cheers,
Paul.