Summary

Twisting of truth, miscommunication, misunderstanding and the mess that cherished friends can find themselves in is a big part of the learning journey of the Scarecrow and the relatable characters from the community of the porch. We invite you to walk along our everyday characters brought to life through their social entanglements and into a new kind of conversation that sets them free!
Rushing to judgement and jumping to conclusions are only two ways that our beloved characters, who are usually good friends, suddenly turn on each other and create divides in their community of the porch. We believe you will be drawn into their happy community that is painfully divided by their own version of social media half-truth telling with all the rapid sharing of harmful impacts .
Scarecrow Finds A Heart, through captivating illustrations that bring relatable characters to life, shares with parents and children, even community or business colleagues a path to help transform tricky situations, all too common in friendships, to a new version of strength emerging from a community that has been tested and now has trust. We believe this compelling story reflects the tensions & tradeoffs of evolving communities and friendships over time.
Our story allows you to walk beside these adorable yet conflicted characters as the community of the porch exemplify these different behaviors, show themselves to us in humorous and vulnerable ways. Their charming personalities captivate us as these characters discover the liberating feeling of opening their minds and asking questions to understand others. We believe their journey of discovery will serve to attract the reader with entertaining and familiar characters that open a door of deeper meaning by exploring different versions of the truth and the stories we tell about ourselves and each other. Their personal adventures help the reader navigate the opening of their eyes to a different kind of conversation, one that can help them find their way to a future of understanding, empathy and collaborative communication. Examples of how people might act, speak, and behave in real-world scenarios are included in the story.
Hidden questions are seeded amongst the colorful hand drawn illustrations. You may need several passes through the book to find them all! Scarecrow Finds A Heart has many layers of experiences for the reader and their parent or colleagues. The purpose of these hidden questions throughout the book is to open your mind to other's perspectives, explore what you may not already know, and create thoughtful compassion for your own lived experiences in life, all through the telling of Scarecrow's epic journey to awareness. These characters' struggles to co-exist and find a way back to celebration may remind you of a time you felt betrayed by a friend, confusion about belonging to a group, felt overwhelmed or misled by stories told from the unhealed hurt around you. Scarecrow Finds A Heart works toward demonstrating that even when it seems like everything is against you that people—even a passing dragonfly—always offer other points of view with a path towards finding wholeness.
By using recognizable traits from our own core family and lives, we hope to illustrate strong resonances that becomes useful in holding a mirror or even a car window up to the reader's world of reflection.

Author Biography

Sydney Roubian is best recognized by friends and colleagues as a value driven college student who is deeply committed to developing herself as both the achiever of academic excellence and the cultivator of a the human spirit in action.

Scarecrow Finds a Heart is her first publication that is shared with others. What most readers of this bio won't know is that the collaborative team of Sydney and her Papa Dave have developed many stories, poems, videos, innovation projects and entrepreneurial business models for many years. This co-creative team has organically grown there newest book from a space of creativity and curiosity that has been nurtured for all of their life together.

Sydney was experiencing the dynamic ups & downs of a normal high school student. Like many of her , she was trying to figure out, how do you hold the pain of some of the unkind, misinterpreted and hurtful words of friends or people that once hurt you deeply, used to be friends? How do you stop the pain, disappointment and fear without stopping all the other feelings that are actually great and fun to have?
Then Covid came along
Sydney and her Papa Dave reached out to each other during Covid lockdown to re-connect, re-imagine and re-kindle the creative and trusted relationship they've both enjoyed since Sydney's birth. Like so many others during that bewildering time, they missed hearing the stories of each other's day to day adventures and challenges, sharing those moments with an engaged listener and having a caring witness to be present.
Their mutual imaginations have led them to navigate and support each other in the "what if's" and "whys" of life's tensions & trade-offs, fueled by fun & curiosity, yet often driven by making sense of the unexplained impacts, hurt and disappointments of living in the world.
Their willingness to hold a safe and trusted space with each other to share their stories has created a sanctuary of respect and mutual understanding that goes beyond their family bonds.
Scarecrow Finds a Heart, began as one of their creative explorations and has transitioned into a way for the willing to re-imagine a different kind of conversation when faced with celebrations, hurt and community conflict.
Our character's story that we share with you now, grew out of our own struggles with hurt and conflict that we shared with each other during the Covid lockdown pandemic.
We hope this book stimulates dialogue and questions of renewed curiosity about how to sustainably navigate what's really important for the people you choose to journey with in your own story.

David Sollars aka Papa Dave is the distinguished founder of MLG, Mindful Leaders Group, a developmental coaching, facilitation and consulting group based in Boston, USA and supporting success with a wide variety of global leaders with international commercial interests. He's built a track record of over 30 years by inviting CEO's and their senior leaders to integrate their extensive industry knowledge and experience with an upgrade to their own awareness and considered actions. His practical approach to developing expertise in self, through both practice & application is aimed at overcoming a leader's "conditioned response".

Scarecrow Finds a Heart is his latest publication co-authored by Papa Dave and his granddaughter, Sydney. At first glance a children's illustrated book designed to spark whimsical discovery in children and their guardians about the stories they make up about each other, the consequences, while also offering deeper experiences of the common challenges for leaders of systems. The pivot points and surprise sources for change highlight a path forward for healing & repairing relationships. Opening our imaginations up to questions beyond our own beliefs allow the relatable characters of the community of the porch to create new kinds of dialogue when their own celebrated friendships experience breakdowns in communication that result in fractured trust and hurtful differences.
Sydney has been a cherished creative partner in Papa Dave's life. Sydney had her own desk beside Papa Dave in his home office, where they would co-create poems, songs, business models, new product innovations, dances and many stories that reflected how they saw the world around them. With the freedom of their unleashed imaginations and the focus of creating something purposeful, as Sydney would later say "A way to help people imagine a new kind of conversation" they have embarked on a multi-book publishing adventure. "The community of the porch has a hundred stories to share" they both say with enthusiasm for sharing a path of positive impact for others, while continuing to indulge in their co-creative spirits.
Auntie Erika was a part of Papa Dave's family for many years as her big sister dated and then married his step-son (they met at age 3 years old), Erika was always welcomed, while celebrating, hanging out and sharing in the family's many adventures. "We marveled at her talent and are delighted, yet not surprised at the amazing artist, mother and wife she has blossomed into today", says a proud Papa Dave.
His practical approach to developing expertise in self, through both practice & application is aimed at overcoming a leader's "conditioned response". From his lived experience of walking beside leaders and their teams during times of great challenge, there has emerged a practice of being present to understand and take a compassionate and firm stance in what happens next.

Mr. Sollars has provided his expertise to others through his published works as well, which began with "The Complete Idiot's Guide to Acupuncture and Acupressure" and "The Complete Idiot's Guide to Homeopathy." He authored multiple publications for The American Institute of Stress, including "The Tangled Truth" and "Moving Beyond Bias: Minimize Non-Conscious Bias to Maximize Results. Horses Bring Peace to a Soldier's Heart, co-authored by David Sollars and David Ferruolo, this article highlights the journey of Clint a military veteran diagnosed with PTSD, through the first US study on Equine Facilitated Mental Health (EFMH) for PTSD
He has also been a contributing and senior editor to several texts and publications including multiple peer- reviewed articles in The Journal of Herbal Pharmacotherapy, Natural Standard Herb & Supplement Handbook – Evidence Based Clinical Review, Natural Standard Herb & Supplement Handbook – The Clinical Bottom Line, Coping with Mild Traumatic Brain Injury, The Root of Chinese Chi Kung and The Eight Pieces of Brocade.

Supplemental Materials

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