Diabetes Daily: Interview with Mike Lawson

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Why did you choose animals as your characters?

Every good children’s book has a handful of lessons hidden just under the surface. One of the reasons I love picture books so much is how they are both really simple and very complex at the exact same time. I was hoping this book would communicate to young people that they are not alone–there’s a really huge and diverse community of people out here doing all of the diabetes stuff you are doing. If I tried to draw a bunch of people, I would be making a lot of choices that could have clouded this message. Also, penguins and raccoons are way more fun to draw!

Life Of A Diabetic:

Blog: Life Of A Diabetic
Written By: Chris Stoker
Read The Full Post: https://thelifeofadiabetic.com/open-up-your-bag-a-diabetes-picture-book-review-and-giveaway/

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The book contains concepts of opening your meter bag, testing your blood sugar, taking your insulin and more. This book is intended for kids and that’s just what I used it for.

I read this book with my daughter multiple times and there’s a page in the book where one of the doodles is taking a shot with an insulin pen and my daughter laughed and said, “daddy that silly penguin is taking a shot like you.”

Healthline: New Diabetes Picture Book for Kids

Website: Healthline
Written By: Mike Hoskins
Read The Full Article: https://www.healthline.com/diabetesmine/mike-lawson-diabetes-kids-picture-book

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Now, a new hand-drawn picture book speaks to newly diagnosed children with diabetes. Even more awesome is that it’s the brainchild of our friend and much-loved fellow D-peep, Mr. Mike Lawson.

You may recognize Mike’s name as an incredible diabetes advocate, based for the past few years in the San Francisco, CA area. He’s known for being a really good guy with amazing artistic talent. Over the years, his graphic designs have included the logo for the annual Spare a Rose, Save a Child campaign, and his artwork was a core part of TuDiabetes and the now-defunct Diabetes Hands Foundation, where he served as senior programming and marketing director. We’ve known this longtime type 1 for many years, and are proud that among his many creative endeavors over the years he was one of our regular cartoonists here at the ‘Mine.

D-Mom Blog: A New Picture Book for Children with Type 1 Diabetes

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D-Kid: Why did you decide to make the characters animals?

Mike: That’s a good question. I wanted this book to tell young people with diabetes that there are other people out there that have diabetes too. I intentionally was trying to make the characters look nothing like the people that I thought would be reading it… and I just assumed that there would be no lady penguins picking up the book. Using animals was an easy way to easily ensure that all of the characters were telling the kids reading it that there are other people out here doing what you do.

Animals are also way more interesting than humans. A book filled with four human characters is not as fun to draw as a book with a panda, penguin, raccoon, and lion. I got to use more color and shapes. People rarely have a huge mane. Drawing humans doesn’t allow me to have fun with sketching out a penguin beak. I feel that having animal characters helped me make the book a little more interesting for the audience I was drawing it for.

PODCAST: Diabetes Connection 9.25.18

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“Open Up Your Bag” is a new children’s picture book about diabetes. The story behind it takes us into a great conversation with the author Mike Lawson. Mike was diagnosed as a young adult (after initially being misdiagnosed as type 2) and he shares stories about finding the diabetes community, getting involved in organizations like TuDiabetes.Org and Diabetes Hands Foundation and what led him to write the book and start Diabetes Doodles.

ADA: Clinical Diabetes

Written by Helen Liu
Read The Full Article: https://clinical.diabetesjournals.org/content/37/2/191

There are numerous books and websites designed to help adults manage their diabetes, but there are far fewer options (such as stories, cartoons, and multimedia publications or programs) aimed at children. Open Up Your Bag by Mike Lawson ventures to fill that gap.

This colorful picture book is designed to help children with diabetes develop and remember their care routines. Although it is designed for children with type 1 diabetes, it could be helpful for young people with type 2 diabetes as well. The artwork is friendly and features smiling animals that could reduce readers’ anxiety around diabetes. Lawson’s purposeful use of colors makes the characters pop off each page. The book presents the idea that life with diabetes can be joyful and positive.

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A final positive element is the book’s inclusion of diversity. In one scene, we see a poster showing Spanish words in a character’s home, and a variety of ages and both sexes are represented throughout. These touches make the book more relatable to diverse readers.

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