‘Side by Side.’ High School Senior Teaches Children About Coping Mechanisms

Seventeen-year-old Santa Barbara High School senior Hannah Hedrick was volunteering at All Saints-by-the-Sea Episcopal Church following the Palisades Fire when she had an epiphany.

Sorting through donated clothes and books for victims of the fire that burned down an entire community, including her cousins’ and aunts’ houses, she had a sense that she could make a bigger impact. “This doesn’t feel like I’m doing enough,” she recalled thinking. “I need to do something more.”

Thus, Side by Side, Stronger We Stand was born: a children’s book aimed at helping children who’ve experienced natural disasters firsthand, cope with the mental aftermath. It’s a rhyming story for young children about four animal friends – a raccoon, an owl, a dog, and a bunny – who lose their home to a fire.

Hedrick applied coping strategies, such as leaning on friends and taking deep breaths, from her own personal experience living in Montecito through the Thomas Fire and the subsequent mudslides. 

She was in fourth grade at the time, and recalled waking up to her mom screaming and calling the fire department, seeing a bright yellow sky and thick rain, and hearing boulders flying through the air. 

The next morning, she saw the destruction in her neighborhood – houses destroyed, trash on the beach, and the National Guard having to rescue them after their car got stuck in the mud. She channeled her experience of those natural disasters to create something that children could lean on in hard times. 

“I don’t want kids to feel alone,” she shared while sitting outside of her Montecito home next to her mother, Candy Hedrick. “I want them to have coping strategies to deal with all the big emotions they’re feeling that they might not be able to even name.”

The book is printed in black and white, allowing children to color it in and make it their own, while also keeping costs down, as Hedrick self-published. She specifically chose animals as her characters for the book, recognizing they’d be more approachable for children and grab their attention. 

Hedrick modeled the main character, Tucker, a German Shepherd, after her own beloved dog. Before Tucker’s passing a few months ago, Hedrick took him to her book readings at schools like Montecito Union School and All Saints-by-the-Sea Parish School. “I would read stories,” she recalled, “and he would lie next to me, and then all the kids loved petting him.”

Hedrick and her family are still getting to know their new German Shepherd rescue, Poppy, and are happy to have a furry friend around again. But it’s hard not to think about Tucker. After losing him, she thought about writing a children’s book about grief, specifically about losing a pet. But that’s a conversation for another time – right now, she’s knee-deep in college applications. 

Hedrick is still focusing on Side by Side, offering readings in bookstores and elementary schools around town. Hannah’s book is for donations only toward impacted families of natural disasters, and inquiries for donations can be found on her website (www.hannah-hedrick.com). She wants to be an educator one day and loves seeing that her words are making a difference.

After a recent reading, a teary-eyed child approached Hedrick asking if he could take home a copy of the book. “And I was like, wow,” she remembered. “This is actually having an impact on kids – it was amazing to see that I was actually helping kids.”