A children’s brand rooted in the whimsical prehistoric is bringing stories of love and kindness into the modern world—plus, it’s giving back to Middle Tennessee communities in the process.

Herbie Vore and Carnie Vore, two original children’s characters, roared onto the reading scene just last year. Their educational escapades are published through IngramSpark, the self-publishing service of Rutherford County-based Ingram Content Group. “Vore” author Athena Phillips says writing children’s books has always been a dream of hers.

“I grew up going to the library and loving to read. I especially loved children’s fiction because the characters in the books were fun and relatable. I’ve been writing poetry, short stories and short fictional works since middle school,” said Phillips, a Brentwood High graduate who now works at the Brentwood Library and as a tenured English teacher at Brentwood High. “I had the support of my family, my past teachers, and was inspired through reading wonderful works written by strong female authors.”

Athena Phillips

Speaking of strong, here’s the details on the dynamically-kind dino duo: Herbie and Carnie are preschool-aged dinosaurs. The first book, Herbie’s Happy Birthday, introduced Herbie Vore and his family, and focused on why birthdays only come one time each year. (Phillips dedicated the book to her late grandmother, Frances; the two shared a birthday).

Carnie Vore Helps with Chores is the second book in the series, introducing Carnie as Herbie’s helpful little cousin. This book focuses on the process of learning to be responsible by helping family with chores. It especially highlights the relationship between Carnie and her Grandma Martha.

“I wanted to write about a helpful and caring preschool-aged character, and I worked with Donte Jackson to bring Herbie Vore the Dinosaur to life. Donte had originally imagined a character based on an ‘astronaut dinosaur,’ and we recreated him into this younger version. Herbie’s and Carnie’s message is to spread the word about helping others and how helping out either in a big or small way is a good thing,” Phillips said. “I designed my characters to represent high morals such as being caring, responsible and helpful, as well as learning how to share. I want young readers to connect with these morals . . . all while educating them through the unique platform of a darling picture and rhyming book. Adults have said they love the lessons found in both books. They love the rhyming, as well as the visuals. I constantly get asked, ‘What will you write about next?’”

Herbie is definitely a love bug . . . er, dino, and Carnie is really cleaning up too.

“We have been fortunate to have Ingram’s full support and to be able to have both of our books available on Amazon and barnesandnoble.com,” adds Athena’s cousin, Murfreesboro entrepreneur Michelle Mills, mother of “Vore” illustrator Meredith Mills. “When we launched last year, we partnered with two charities. One was the Watts Empowerment Center near Los Angeles [a partnership with which Herbie co-author Donte Jackson was personally involved] and the other was The Birthday Party Project. We donated books to both of those charities to provide the Herbie’s Happy Birthday book to underserved kids. Now that we have released a second book, we are looking to partner with Tennessee organizations. We have donated books locally to First United Methodist Preschool in Murfreesboro, Smith Springs Elementary School library in Davidson County, The Earth Experience here in Murfreesboro, the YMCA Fun Company in Murfreesboro and many others. It’s definitely a family venture. Athena, Meredith and I are all related. I am acting as the final publisher and do all of the admin work with IngramSpark. I also work with our editor, Sarah, from Sleeping Cat Books.”

“Vore” illustrator Meredith Mills

Meredith Mills, a member of The Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators, currently lives in L.A. but grew up in Antioch and “specializes in drawing animals—she does not like drawing humans!” says her mother, Michelle.

There are other Herbie and Carnie Vore books currently in the works. The Vore family also includes Herbie’s parents, Ted and Alice Vore, and Herbie and Carnie’s grandmother, Martha Vore. Carnie and Herbie also have a group of adorable friends: Arlo the bluebird, Heidi the woolly mammoth and Buddy the mouse.

If the pen and paints weren’t mighty enough, this team has now begun the process of having custom puppets created. A company called His Hands Puppets created Herbie Vore and are working on a Carnie version.

“We had Justin Reed become the voice and personality of Herbie. Originally we only wanted content for our herbievore.com website,” explains Mills, “but soon began to envision school and church assemblies, library puppet shows, and possibly a PBS/NPT show in the future. We are looking for opportunities to donate books to local Head Start programs and possibly bring our puppet shows to their locations through organized preschool assemblies.”

Murfreesboro-born Reed works at McMinnville’s 105.3 WOW Country and serves as master of ceremonies at Murfreesboro’s Dewdrop Jamboree as well as being the pulpit minister at the Wood Church of Christ in Woodbury.

“I am also puppeteering Herbie,” Reed said. “They are working on fine-tuning the actual show; we have been shooting already and getting ready to pitch it.”

Mike Hutsell is responsible for the camera work and editing on the puppet show prototype.

So stay tuned for the next chapter: the popular children’s books are set to soon unfold into puppet shows, a YouTube channel and maybe more.

“Our goal is to see a big Herbie Vore and Carnie Vore walking around in a Universal Studios theme park one day!” muses Mills.

The team also plans to partner with The Touch Talk Read Play program, an initiative of the Urban Child Institute in Memphis, which encourages nurturing touch, conversational talk, exposure to reading and books and play time between children and the most important adults in their lives.

For more on the adventures of Herbie Vore and Carnie Vore, visit herbievore.com.
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