A Battle Ground author is making her debut in children’s literature with a book that brings personal memories and artificial intelligence-assisted illustrations to life.
Tiana Meckel, an 11-year Battle Ground resident, released “Turner’s Great Adventure” last December. The book follows Turner, a frog who sets out from his pond to discover new places and friends, only to realize the beauty of his own home.
Meckel kept a stuffed frog in the back of her car for years, a cherished companion that ultimately inspired the main character and their adventurous spirit.
“He has literally been in every car that I’ve owned, and he’s always gone,” Meckel said. “We always say Turner’s going on an adventure ... So we kind of just started dreaming of his adventures, and that’s kind of where it began.”
It wasn’t until a conversation with her 12-year-old son that Meckel decided to make the leap into authorship.
“My son and I were talking about me wanting to be a children’s author, and he looked at me and said, ‘Well, why aren’t you?’” she said. “And I looked back, and I didn’t have an excuse. So I legitimately started writing the story that day.”
Writing the story in her head was easy for Meckel when she began in the spring of last year, but illustrating proved challenging. After hiring an illustrator whose work did not match her vision, she turned to a combination of digital design tools and AI to bring her story to life.
“I know a lot of people don’t like AI, but there was a lot of doing it for me in Canva and Photoshop,” she said. “It’s definitely not as easy as just typing in a sentence. It took months and months of work.”
Meckel combined elements from multiple AI-generated images, adjusting them manually to create cohesive illustrations.
“It took months and months,” Meckel said. “One page might have 20 different things, and I had to learn to put them together and create the scene.”
Meckel emphasized that the book remained a deeply personal project. Many of the characters in “Turner’s Great Adventure” are based on real pets and animals around her home, from which the book’s setting draws inspiration.
“We live in a big white house, and my favorite tree in our yard is a weeping willow,” she said. “We don’t have a pond, but we always have frogs.”
Alongside the book, Meckel has also released a companion coloring book featuring illustrations adapted from the original story.
“I love coloring and puzzles, anything creative,” she said. “With so much technology, I really want to make sure kids still have things that trigger the creative side of their brain.”
“Turner’s Great Adventure” is available on Amazon and at local retailers such as Pacificly You in Battle Ground and Copper Bell Bookshop in Ridgefield. Meckel also plans to begin school readings in the spring.
For aspiring authors, Meckel offers simple advice.
“Go for it. Don’t wait 20 years. Just write down whatever you have and get started,” she said.
For more information on “Turner’s Great Adventure” and Meckel’s other projects, visit becreativepublishing.com.
