After trading in seniors for six-year-olds, Melodie migrated from secondary Spanish to a bilingual first-grade classroom and began the most rewarding phase of her career. It was during a class field trip to a large chicken production farm that she began to imagine personifying a chicken character like the high-spirited Gabby.

One day, a truck hauling stacked cages of chickens had a mishap—several cages had fallen off, and indeed some chicken escapees were wandering about (heads still intact)! That impressionable moment was scripted as a children’s story assignment in a graduate course. The original version in Spanish was Gabi, la gallina, and illustrated with watercolors to bring it to life.

Sadly, this literary endeavor of 2004 lay nearly forgotten for about 15 years until the author became semi-retired. Gabi’s story was then resurrected and Melodie vowed to illustrate it anew, translate it back to English and publish it. The original Gabi story in Spanish will become available. Going forward, she visualizes Gabby at the beach, the organic farm, at the salon, in the city, learning about diversity, nature, and kindness while being annoyingly curious!