VML Made an Incredibly Haunting Picture Book That's Really Not at All for Kids

Stories by teens about hunger and violence

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If you picked up a copy of Welcome to My Neighborhood with the illustration of a joyful mouse, bunny and kitten holding hands and dancing on the cover, you might think you'd found the perfect picture book for your little one. But upon closer inspection, you'd see a broken whiskey bottle in one corner, an empty tin can in another and a worn-looking mattress in the background. It's a picture book all right, but it's definitely not intended for kids.

VML created the book, described as a bedtime story to wake people up, pro bono for Youth Ambassadors, an organization that works with young people in troubled communities facing anything from domestic violence to hunger.

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