By: Vanilla Heart Publishing

What do you tell a child when their best friend doesn’t come home? For so many families, the first real heartbreak a child faces is the loss of a pet. It’s a kind of love that feels endless and a kind of goodbye that feels impossible. Parents search for the right words. Children search for reassurance. And in that fragile space between sadness and healing, a powerful new voice has arrived. Cooper Sends a Gift, the debut picture book from author Deborah (Debbie) J. Peschen, steps gently into that conversation with comfort, beauty, and a message that grief can lead to love.

A Story That Heals Hearts

“What if love could send one last message from beyond the Rainbow Bridge?” That is the question at the soul of Cooper Sends a Gift, a tender, uplifting children’s story that speaks directly to any family who has ever lost a beloved animal. The book follows Cooper, a small Maltipoo with a big heart, who tells his own story of love, loyalty, and letting go. Even after he passes on, Cooper finds a way to reassure his grieving mom that love doesn’t disappear. It simply changes form.

Cooper Sends a Gift is not just another children’s book about pets. It is a guided emotional experience, told with rare gentleness and honesty, that may help families talk about loss. And at the center of it is the woman who wrote it: Debbie J. Peschen, also known as Deborah Peschen, an author and lifelong animal lover whose own heartbreak became the seed of this deeply healing story. Through her words, she invites readers,  adults and children alike,  to believe that love is stronger than goodbye.

The Heart Behind the Story: Meet Debbie J. Peschen

Debbie J. Peschen writes like someone who has lived every word. She is not a distant observer of the bond between humans and their animals. She is a witness to it. A participant in it. A protector of it.

As both a storyteller and a devoted pet parent, Peschen has spent years learning how animals change us. She credits two dogs in particular,  Cooper and Mack,  for teaching her about patience, devotion, and resilience. Cooper, a wheelchair-bound Maltipoo who could not walk but never stopped loving, and Mack, the spirited little burst of energy who came into her life when she needed him.

To Peschen, their presence was more than just companionship. It was a form of ministry. It brought healing.

Her philosophy is simple and beautiful: every goodbye can open the door to a new beginning. She understands that for children, loss can feel permanent and frightening. For adults, it can feel like an empty room that echoes. Her mission as an author is to help bridge that moment. She writes to help parents talk about grief without fear. She writes to show children that missing someone is an expression of love, not a sign that love is gone.

In Cooper Sends a Gift, Peschen gently transforms her personal heartbreak into a message of hope for others, page by page. She does not turn away from sadness. She walks the reader through it, holding their hand the entire time.

From Loss to Light: The Birth of Cooper Sends a Gift

The book did not begin as a product. It started as pain.

Cooper was loved for fifteen beautiful years. He could not run like other dogs. He spent his days in a blue stroller, guided, protected, and adored by his mom. He was paralyzed, but he was not limited. He lived a full life because he was loved without condition.

Losing him was devastating.

In that quiet after loss,  the silence that feels wrong, the hallway that feels too still,  Debbie did what many people do. She grieved. She replayed moments. She remembered the way he looked at her. And she wondered how to go on without the little soul who had depended on her and, in many ways, defined her daily rhythm.

Then something extraordinary happened. The day Cooper crossed the Rainbow Bridge, another life entered the world. A tiny white puppy named Mack was born.

That connection became the heart of Cooper Sends a Gift. In the book, Cooper himself tells the story of “sending” Mack to his grieving mom, not to replace him, but to help her keep loving. That shift from sorrow to warmth and from absence to renewal is the emotional engine of the story. It’s also the moment that makes the book more than a memorial. It becomes a doorway.

Writing the book became its own form of healing for Peschen. It let her speak to Cooper. It let her thank him. And it allowed her to shape that goodbye into something families everywhere could hold, reread, and share when they need the words they cannot find on their own.

Inside the Pages: The Story of Cooper and Mack

Cooper Sends a Gift is told in Cooper’s own loving voice. He introduces himself: a sweet little Maltipoo, “an adorable little dog,” who lived what he calls “the happiest life a dog could ever dream of.” He is open about his physical challenges. He explains, without self-pity, that he was disabled and could not run like other dogs. He traveled in his blue stroller. He needed help. He required patience.

And yet, he never felt different, because his mom never treated him as a burden.

Through vivid, child-friendly storytelling, we see snapshots of a life shared in total devotion. Cooper going on airplane adventures, Cooper being tucked in at night, Cooper riding proudly in his stroller, smiling, and Cooper licking his mom’s face and making her laugh. These scenes are reinforced by warm illustrations, soft colors, loving facial expressions, and details that invite young readers to bond with both characters emotionally.

Then Cooper grows older. He becomes tired. He gently explains that it was time for him to cross the Rainbow Bridge. The book handles this moment softly. There is sadness, yes, and tears. But there is also dignity. Cooper describes the crossing not as an ending, but as freedom,  a place where he can run again, where he feels no pain.

From there, the story blooms into its powerful message. Cooper sees his mom grieving, and he cannot bear to watch her cry. He wants her to laugh again. He wants her to feel joy in her home again. So, he sends her a gift: Mack.

Mack is chaos, energy, light, “a wigglebutt with the spirit of an energizer fluff,” as Peschen lovingly frames it. He is not Cooper’s replacement. He is Cooper’s legacy. Through Mack, Cooper’s love continues. Through Mack, Mom learns that loving again is not betrayal. It is healing.

One of the striking visual notes in the book is a glowing heart-shaped image of Cooper’s spirit watching over Mom and Mack together. That illustration alone serves as reassurance for any child: the ones we love are still with us, even if we can’t hold them.

The message is clear and unforgettable: love never ends. It just changes shape.

Why Cooper Sends a Gift Matters: Comfort for Every Family

Cooper Sends a Gift matters because it gives families a language for grief.

Parents often struggle to explain loss without frightening their children, and children often struggle to express sadness without feeling like they’re doing something wrong. This book becomes a bridge between those two emotional worlds. It gives comfort without denial. It offers hope without pretending that goodbye doesn’t hurt.

Teachers, librarians, child therapists, and grief counselors are already recognizing the book’s value as an emotional tool. It helps children talk about the confusing, heavy feeling that arrives after losing a pet. It shows them, gently, that it is okay to cry. It is okay to miss. It is okay to love again.

The book’s impact goes beyond dog families. One reader, Rebecca Holt, shared that although her family had said goodbye to a cat, they still found peace in Cooper’s story. That is the quiet power Debbie J. Peschen has tapped into. She is writing about a Maltipoo and his mom, yes. But she is also writing about every living thing we have ever loved and had to let go.

Beyond the Book: The Legacy of Debbie J. Peschen

For Peschen, Cooper Sends a Gift is not the end of the conversation. It is the opening statement.

She views storytelling as a responsibility. She believes books can sit with a child the way a caring adult would. She believes every book can be a soft place to land. Her work is not just about pets. It is about emotional literacy,  teaching children that their feelings matter and have names.

Through her website and outreach, she connects directly with families, parents, educators, and book clubs who use her story in real moments of healing. She offers signed copies. She shares updates. She invites people to tell their own stories of loss and renewal. She is building a quiet, compassionate community around the shared experience of loving an animal.

And she is not stopping. Peschen is already shaping future stories that explore friendship, emotional resilience, and the lasting bond between children and the animals who walk beside them, sometimes for a season and sometimes for a lifetime.

Love That Lives Forever

At its core, Cooper Sends a Gift is not about sadness. It is about devotion. It is about a little dog who never stopped caring for his mom, even after his paws could no longer touch the ground beside hers. It is about a new puppy who arrives not to erase the past, but to carry it forward.

Debbie J. Peschen has given families something rare: a children’s book that is emotionally brave, spiritually generous, visually tender, and genuinely valuable for some of the challenging moments a parent will ever face.

Her message is steady, reassuring, unforgettable. Every goodbye can open the door to a new beginning.

Cooper Sends a Gift is available through Barnes & Noble, Google Books, and directly through the website, where readers can also request signed copies and join her mailing list for future releases. For any parent, teacher, counselor, or animal lover searching for the right words,  this is a book that speaks softly and speaks from the heart.

In Cooper’s world, and in ours, love never fades. It simply finds new ways to be felt.