Local counselor releases children’s book

Fort Benton resident Wanda Diekhans has used her 25 years of experience as a clinical licensed counselor to create a children’s book that has a message for all ages.

“Pica and the Gift” is written to guide parents in helping children express their feelings through a cute and enjoyable story, while also recognizing how they handle their own feelings and behavioral patterns.
Pica is a little dog - inspired by Diekhans’ own emotional support working dog, Duncan - that observes her surroundings and notes how her family of humans live. Like any family, they laugh and play, but also fight, argue and have disagreements – “not-so-good feelings” – as Diekhans writes.

Pica is an eating disorder where a person compulsively eats things that aren’t food and don’t have any nutritional value or purpose.

“It’s a disorder of physical malnourishment, but also emotionally, mentally, and spiritually,” Diekhans said.

Her main character’s name was inspired by the mental exhaustion pica can cause and she created an acronym for the name: Pretend,

Intend, Contend, and Attend.
“In life, we fall into four behavior patterns,” Diekhans said. “We’re taught to play pretend growing up. We notice the intentions of our families. We become angry and contend with one another to win. Finally, we attend to people’s needs, sometimes before our own.” As each word has the word “tend” in it, learning how to tend to these “not-so-good feelings” is the moral of “Pica and the Gift.” “We live in such a rush-rush world, that we forget to tend to ourselves,” Diekhans said, “We don’t talk about our emotions anymore.”

“Pica and the Gift” helps families find a common ground to feel safe and have conversations without fear of confrontations.

Pica does this in the climax of the story, where the little dog gathers letter fridge magnets and spells out the word “tend” to her family.

“They smiled when they realized PICA was sharing a GIFT with them,” the book reads. “She was trying to tell them that their not-so-good feelings could change by simply TENDING.”

Diekhans hopes her book inspires healthy changes to occur with friends, family, and relationships.

“God gave me the idea one day to write this book,” Diekhans said. The writing process moved quickly, but the editing process took the most time, with Diekhans continuously editing till two weeks before the deadline.
The other challenge was finding an illustrator.
“I believed I was going to have to illustrate, so I took watercolor painting classes,” Diekhans said.

Diekhans discovered an online service and connected with Lady Bruniere, a digital artist from Ireland, who created the adorable drawings of Pica and her family.

Diekhans retired from counseling in May and has spent the time writing her book, expanding her creative talents, and being a grandmother.

Her home is open to curious customers who would like to purchase her beautiful pottery, jewelry, CBD products, or a copy of “Pica and the Gift.”