“We wanted to give a home to kids who didn’t have a home, and I love infant adoption. I think it’s a beautiful thing,” said Kimber Daley, describing her attitude toward foster parenting. In fact, this local Highlands Ranch mom and her husband have opened their hearts to two foster children: a brother and sister.

Daley is an Arapahoe Community College (ACC) student striving to improve her writing. She explained that she would like to take as many writing classes as possible, preferably one each semester, until she has taken them all. Daley is currently signed up for creative fiction with Jamie Trotter in the fall, and has recently launched her new children’s picture book.

The adventure began when Daley and her husband realized they both wanted to be foster parents. “If you want to adopt a baby, there’s a waiting list of people who want that baby, versus an older child – that child is just waiting for a family,” she said. “We wanted to do that, specifically sibling sets – we wanted to keep a sibling set together.”

Yet besides managing her busy household, this energetic mom has another, equally fascinating pursuit. Daley is proud to announce her newest title: children’s book author. In a recent interview, Daley immediately introduced me to her children’s book, The Stuffed Giraffe: A Foster Care Story.

“This is a sweet tale of Ben, a little boy full of excitement, and a bit of nervousness at the thought of becoming a foster brother. Will he like having a baby in his house? What if she’s stinky? What if she cries all the time?” These are a few questions addressed in Daley’s new book. It explores life as a family, with Ben, baby Hope, and her stuffed giraffe, Summer.

Daley’s interest in writing stemmed from personal experience. “My husband and I adopted our two youngest kids. We had been foster parents, and it had been a rough, long, 19 months before we got to the adoption,” she recalled. “Court’s done. Lawyers are done. I’m going to have a little time back. I want to write a book.” Before she knew it, her husband got her a notebook, and she sketched out two book ideas. That was the first week of March 2020. Daley came home and the pandemic was hitting. The notebook was put away.

“A year and a half later, the kids are all back in school. I took a creative writing class. And this story I’d had in the back of my head just came in one afternoon,” she admitted, “I just sat, and I wrote the story out. I mean, everything.” Daley also readily admits her writing came relatively quickly. Considering the editing, she said it “took infinitely longer.”

When asked about the origin of her story, she described their biographical nature as, “I have taken little bits and pieces of our story. Emotionally, I take pieces of our story that our family has experienced.” She can empathize with the feelings of foster kids and understand what they go through in the process of adoption. She concluded, “I took a lot of the emotion of our story and put it into this book.” 

For some of her future story ideas, Daley said, “I have written book two, and they are being illustrated right now. I hope to turn it into a series of five children’s books.” Daley has also considered writing a novel for adults. Specifically, she thinks about writing from a mother’s perspective. She said, “I thought, ‘What about her? And so I started writing it loosely the night she went to her first training.” Daley’s own foster parenting experience is etched into her memory. Either way, it seems like foster families will continue to be a common theme for Daley’s writing. 

‘The Stuffed Giraffe: A Foster Care Story, book one’ written by Kimber Kaye Daley and illustrated by Stephanie Kaye Smith, was published April 13th 2022, and can be purchased on Amazon.

One thing is for certain, whether her ideas come from personal experience or her own imagination, Kimber Daley strives to incorporate empathy and devotion into her stories; “We got an email about this little boy and little girl, we had 24 hours, no pictures and never met them. But we were accepting a foster placement intended to go toward adoption.”