Treasure Valley women publish "Seeds of Hope," children's book about leaving an abusive environment

Two Treasure Valley women are working to make a difference in the community publishing a children's book called, "Seeds of Hope."

The story holds special significance to both of them.

"I was a child of abuse growing up and it was really difficult because we didn't have an education back then. It was the late 90's, early 2000's and we were just starting to see people talk about abuse in the home especially with emotional and physical abuse was so taboo and victim blaming being such a huge issue," said Laura Gray, Seeds of Hope Illistrator.

It follows a young boy named Jimmy as he leaves a domestic abuse environment with his mom and brother. The family seeks freedom at the Women's and Children's Alliance Shelter.

"We really need a world where this kind of vocabulary is available and most importantly to young children who don't necessarily associate what's going on in their lives as bad because this could be the way their whole life has been. The goal is to promote a non taboo topic to approach, something, I want all people of all walks of life to pick this book up, flip through it and have an opportunity to learn about our world," said Gray.

Chris Davis with the Women's and Children's Alliance says domestic violence is a problem in our community.

"It's insidious and it's corrosive to our community to our society so I want everyone to read this story because we can stop it. We can stop it by paying attention to our kids and talking to our kids and helping our children so the next generation has far less domestic abuse than our current generation. We need to help those who are in the situations now and stop the cycle, but we need to address it with the future generations." "Understand how it feels and identify some of those behaviors and some of those signals and really give a voice to those kids and to just see that experience through their eyes," said Davis

The book release party will be Thursday, February 21st, 2019 at seven pm. at Rediscovered Books in Downtown Boise.