ABOUT

Mable’s Stable is an illustrated children’s picture book about faith in action. Mable is a devout girl whose love for Jesus shapes how she lives—especially in the way she cares for her beloved horses. When she wakes to find the stable doors open and the horses gone, she’s confronted with loss, fear, and uncertainty. Instead of panic, Mable responds with prayer and resolve, stepping into a journey of recovery that becomes a journey of the heart.

Each missing horse represents a different struggle of the soul—temptation, distraction, doubt, and the pull away from what is good. As Mable searches, she faces challenges that test her character and convictions, but her faith remains steady. With every horse she brings home, her confidence in God’s guidance deepens. By the end, Mable doesn’t just recover what was lost—she understands more clearly the transformative power of love, redemption, and the profound depth of God’s care.

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The Brief
• Create a child-friendly story that communicates faith, redemption, and spiritual growth through a clear, engaging adventure.
• Use the horses as symbolic figures—each one reflecting a distinct internal struggle—while keeping the narrative accessible for young readers.
• Build a warm, emotionally readable visual world (Mable’s expressions, body language, and atmosphere) that supports both tension and hope.
• Deliver a cohesive set of illustrations suitable for a picture-book format: consistent character design, recurring motifs, and a satisfying emotional finish.

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My Approach & Process
• Allegory with clarity: I treated the story as a gentle spiritual allegory—each horse representing a specific “pull” on the heart—while ensuring the plot still works as a straightforward rescue-and-return adventure.
• Emotion-first character design: Mable’s faith needed to feel relatable, so I focused on expressive poses and facial storytelling—concern, courage, relief, and gratitude—so children can follow the emotional arc visually.
• Visual symbolism: I used repeated motifs (open doors, paths, thresholds, light vs shadow, safe enclosure vs wilderness) to reinforce the themes of wandering and returning without overexplaining.
• Pacing through encounters: Each retrieval functions like a mini-episode with its own challenge and resolution, creating page-turn momentum while building cumulative meaning as the stable fills again.
• Faith as action: Prayer isn’t presented as passive—it’s shown as the source of courage, patience, and discernment, shaping Mable’s choices as she perseveres to bring each horse home.