An Oak Park family is honoring their late daughter by publishing a story written through her 9-year-old eyes about love, acceptance, and how, despite differences, people can come together to join in community.
Now, almost nine years after her death, the Jain family released “Monsters Everywhere” in hopes of sharing their daughter’s infectious spirit and her words that even at a young age, preached acceptance and community.
“Monsters Everywhere” is a story from the girl, Gauri, that she put to paper one fateful summer in 2012, when Sandeep Jain, a professor of ophthalmology at the University of Illinois in Chicago, challenged his daughter and son, Mohit Jain, to write a story during their summer vacation under the guidance of their tutor, Erin Stelter.
The idea wasn’t farfetched for the family. Jain recalled asking Gauri to write summaries of what she was reading from the new books she would ask him to buy for her, so while the price for Jain was money, Guari had to “pay” in the form of little book reports.
“We had no clue that this was going to be several chapters or a book or a manuscript,” Jain said. “It was just meant to be a way for two kids to enjoy the summer. It wasn’t meant to be anything.”
Mohit Jain, 24, and a graduate of Oak Park and River Forest High School, recalled the summer that he and his sister worked on the story, saying he was excited to get to do something with her and how it served as a “good bonding experience.”
“I think that summer brought us closer, my sister and I. We were continuously writing,” he said.
He added that because said that because they were kids who wanted to enjoy the summer, there were definitely moments when they dreaded working on the story. However, Gauri’s creativity and imagination always managed to shine through.
The siblings produced a manuscript, which was emailed to Jain.
“Things pass and you never think about it anymore,” Jain said. “Except ‘that is good’ and you move on.”
On New Year’s Eve 2015, Gauri, who was 12 and a student at Brooks Middle School, died from anaphylactic shock. The family had no idea that Gauri held any allergies.
After her death, Jain said the family just tried to come to terms with their tremendous loss.
“We don’t think about how to celebrate somebody’s legacy,” Jain said. “You just want time to pass.”
But the family has found that even as the years passed, Gauri’s memory is still very present in their lives; from the moments when they speak about her to the toothbrush that — even nearly nine years later — no one has moved from the last spot she placed it.
“It is one of those things where we celebrate her life, and yes there is obviously grief,” Sandeep Jain said, adding that the first Saturday of June the family gathers with their community to celebrate Gauri. “It’s a tradition. It’s not that people come there to talk about Gauri but more so that everybody has a good time. It is not a sorrowful thing; it is a celebration.”
For years, “Monsters Everywhere” stayed in Sandeep’s inbox and the idea of having it published was tucked away in the back of his mind. The one day an artist walked into his office.
Jain took the chance to ask Emily Haworth, an illustrator, if she would look at Gauri’s manuscript to see if she could bring her words to life through illustration.
“When she sent the cover I was like ‘are you kidding me?” Jain said. “This is beyond what we ever thought anybody could do – making each character the way Gauri wrote in the book comes alive in illustrations.”
“Monsters Everywhere” tells the story of two groups — humans and monsters — who navigate their differences after a new law is passed giving monsters and humans equal rights. It was Gauri’s way of telling a story about the power of unity, the strength of collaboration, and the importance of seeing the world through different perspectives.
For Jain, it is a story of inclusiveness, and the message is that people may have different perspectives, but they can come together in the end.
For Mohit Jain, who said losing his sister was a “punch to the gut,” said he is always trying to honor her.
For the Jain family, it was important to keep the manuscript “as is,” so that people had the chance to see the world through the mind of a nine-year-old.
“It is not very often you get to read a children’s book that is written by a child,” Jain said. “There is nothing like leaving it as is. The way it was is the way it is. You take away from the soul of the book if you editorialize it.”
Jain, who has kept all of his daughter’s stories and everything she wrote, said Gauri had a rare talent of being able to put her thoughts onto paper as they came naturally.
“What mattered to her was that she could jot down three pages and you would wonder how,” he said. “She was a very gifted writer in that sense. She had that ability, but she also had the ability of getting a sense of what it is written and what you take out of it.”
And while Mohit Jain was involved in the creation of the story, for him, Gauri is the real author whose ideas and work were the main driving force behind the story, with him serving more as a co-author to flesh it out.
“Whatever endeavor I pursue, I always use her as inspiration,” Mohit Jain said. “Most people try to spend their life trying to leave behind some kind of impact or meaningfully contribute and I think this book reflects her meaningful contributions to our community and people who will be reading the book, young children.”
“Monsters Everywhere” by Gauri Jain is available through Barnes & Noble and Amazon.