Businesswoman writes children's books about stay-at-home father

NAPERVILLE, Ill. -- Kori Reed wants to give dads their due.

"Not too many children's books have fathers as their main characters," said Reed, who works full time as communications manager at Quaker Oats in Chicago. "I wanted to change that."

Reed has written and published three children's books on fathers who have left the workplace to stay at home and raise their children.

Reed knows her material well. Her husband, Mike Becker, decided five years ago to raise their children while Reed was away at her job during the day. The children, to date, are Kedzie, 6; Madison, 5; Austyn, 3; and Logan, 7 months.

As Reed talked about her books in the living room of her Naperville home, Becker tried to feed Logan, who was making faces and looked on the verge of crying.

"Logan is cutting his teeth now, so he's not in the best of moods," Reed said.

Reed sat on a dark blue couch dotted with little white moons and suns. A pillow in the shape of the man in the moon rested at the other end of the couch. Toys were scattered throughout the brightly colored rooms. The laughs and shouts of children could be heard in other parts of the house. Photographs of the couple's children sat on top of a piano and decorated some of the walls.

"People tell us we live in a kid-friendly house," Reed said.

Her family experiences permeate her books.

Reed recalled the time when one of her daughters visited the zoo. When the girl's aunt pointed out that a mother giraffe was feeding her baby, the girl said: "No, mommy is at work. That's the daddy giraffe feeding the baby."

Such stories provided inspiration for Reed's books.

"We hear a lot about deadbeat dads," she said. "But my books are an opportunity to say there are dads out there who are really involved with their kids. I want to promote positive fatherhood. There are a lot of children who think their fathers are really cool, and I want to support that."

Reed wrote her books on the train to and from work two years ago.

"I had stories to tell and I wanted to tell them," she said. "It was really fun getting all my creative ideas down."

Her sister, Kendra Reed, illustrated the books, which are geared for preschool children.

"My illustrations are a total celebration of what Kori writes about and a celebration of our family," Kendra Reed said.

Kendra Reed said the faces of the books' characters resemble the faces of her sister, her brother-in-law and their children.

Kori Reed's first book, "Daddy Does the Dishes and Other Daddy Deeds," focused on a typical day in the life of a stay-home father and his children. The book starts with the mother waving to her children from a train as she goes to work. As the day unfolds, the father takes one of his daughters to preschool, practices ballet with her, shops for groceries and performs other household chores, to the delight of his children.