Multicolored Monono: Finding the courage to shine when you're one of a kind.

How can you make friends when you're different from all the rest? Meet Monono, a multicolored crayon who struggles to fit in with the other crayons in the classroom and feels sad to not be included in the students' colorful artwork.

Multicolored Monono is an empowering story for children ages 5 to 10 about finding happiness and self-assurance even in the face of rejection. Young kids relate with Monono's confusion and loneliness as an outcast in his journey towards courage and connection. Will the day ever come when a child will choose the multicolored crayon for a drawing, and will the other crayons finally accept Monono?

Nicole Todd Bailey is an adoptive mom who writes from both her and her children's perspectives. Starting her intercultural exploration as a student in France and Russia, and then as a Peace Corps Volunteer in West Africa, Nicole has lived on three continents, traveled through 46 countries, and witnessed countless times the value of being a cultural relativist. Her children are from Ethiopia and the Marshall Islands, and they teach Nicole lessons every day about their experiences as people of color, living in the margins of society, and forging their unique paths. She hopes that sharing some of their lived experiences in children's books will help others who find themselves in a diverse and vibrant but often lonely lane of life. For more adoption insights and multiracial stories from Nicole and her children, check out laneofourown.com or follow them @laneofourown.