Connie Schultz's 'Lola and the Troll' fights bullies with a new picture book for children

CLEVELAND – Connie Schultz is a bestselling author who has written for national newspaper readers, politicians and presidents.

Her newest piece is for 4- to 8-year-olds.

It’s a picture book about a girl named Lola and her adorable tiny dog, Tank. On their way to school, they hurry past Tom the Troll, a leaf-covered, fang-toothed monster who holds up handmade signs with insults directed at Lola.

Her hair is too big. Her smile looks funny. Her voice is too loud.

Lola, terrified, begins to change until she no longer recognizes herself in the face of Tom’s taunting.

Check out: USA TODAY's weekly Best-selling Booklist

And while “Lola and the Troll” is likely to be a child’s birthday present this year, it seems just as likely to be given as a graduation gift, or a gift to a friend at the office. There’s a reason Lola’s story feels relevant to a lot more people than those in elementary school. After all, Schultz knows a thing or two about trolls.

How to fight a troll

Schultz, a liberal and a feminist writer, has 500,000 followers across social media platforms.

She was one of the early columnists to take a stand on calling Donald Trump’s untrue statements “lies.” She writes about access to abortion; fair wages for women; medical care for transgender teens.

She also shares her favorite books, photos of her grandchildren and observations about finding beauty in the world. Either way, she isn’t one to back down.

In return, too often, the trolls arrive. They’re usually anonymous. But let’s be realistic: They are men. And they are mean.

The comments are about her words but also her appearance.

Schultz long ago stopped wavering on how to respond.

If a poster unintentionally shares incorrect information, she corrects it. But if a follower willfully spreads false information, she blocks them and deletes their comments. If a comment goes after a reader, she blocks them.

"I don't need everyone to agree with me," she says, "but I need them to refrain from personally attacking fellow commenters or trying to misinform the public on my very public page."

One day in summer 2021, after blocking someone, she commented: “Tom the Troll has been blocked!”

Another reader saw Schultz’s response and commented that “Tom the Troll” would make a great children’s book.

Schultz went to what was then known as Twitter and jokingly said,  “I’m thinking of writing a children’s book titled, Tom The Troll Has Been Blocked.”

It was just a good Tweet. Yet within 24 hours, an editor with a division of Random House contacted her agent.

Initially, Schultz was hesitant about the idea of writing a children’s book.

This is a woman who wrote the New York Times bestselling novel "The Daughters of Erietown," has written two memoirs, won a Pulitzer prize for criticism, wrote a weekly column for USA TODAY and now writes a wildly popular Substack column.

But a children’s book was different.

“I’ve always had such reverence for children’s books, and children,” she says. “I was worried about writing this.”

Schultz talked with the woman who contacted her agent and who would later become her editor for “Lola and the Troll.” They walked through what goes into a children’s book and how it wouldn’t contain 1,000 words, shorter than her weekly newspaper columns. Yet each one counts.

Schultz thought, maybe.

Inspired by Walter and Ela

Her love of children is evident throughout the Cleveland home she shares with her husband, Sen. Sherrod Brown, a Democrat from Ohio. The walls are filled with colorful art by their eight grandchildren. A basket of dozens of fabric mice dressed in clothes sits next to a small cardboard house. And photos, so many photos.

It is a house that feels filled with love and life, even when Schultz is the only one at home.

Picture books are stacked on the coffee table, where Schultz places her water glass as she explains how, as a single mother, she loved to buy children’s books when her two were young. At the bookstore, they knew her by name. Now the bookstore has become a favorite place with her grandchildren.

Good children’s books were so very good. And bad ones? She didn’t want to write one of those.

Walter jumps up, a tiny sliver of fluff in a red sweater, his ear cocked. It is as if on cue. Actually, Walter makes lots of appearances on the sofa on this day. So maybe this isn’t on cue.

Walter is ever-present in the book as Tank, the little dog who follows Lola everywhere. Lola is inspired by Schultz’s granddaughter Ela.

Schultz remembers when her youngest was little. It wasn’t easy to find books centered on brave girls.

If she was going to write this book, there was no question the main character would be a girl.

She thought about a time almost 20 years ago when she was giving a speech and a woman asked her how she dealt with the haters who go after her personally, often first targeting physical appearance. Sometimes they even went after her ability as a mother.

At first, Schultz said, she told the woman they didn’t faze her. The woman said she wished she could be as brave as Schultz was.

And Schultz realized her answer hadn’t been the whole truth.

She used to question herself when readers were mean. It hurt. Sometimes it even scared her.

“Yes,” she said that night, that the comments could be hurtful. “I just don’t let them stop me.”

She thought about this as she began writing “Lola.” If she was going to ask others to be brave, she needed to be too.

As she started writing, she felt less nervous and more excited in a new way about work.

“I felt like it was something new and I loved it,” she says. “It was something to look forward to.”

To inspire, not to preach

The book had to be more than a story. It needed to mean something, but not be preachy or tell people how to parent. “I would never do that,” she says. “I wanted to help start conversations.”

She tried out drafts on some of her grandchildren, including a then 6-year-old Caroline and 4½-year-old Ela.

She thought about how a troll would appear to children and settled on one that made handwritten signs mocking Lola. Illustrator Sandy Rodriguez brought Tom to life. Schultz picked Rodriguez after seeing her work and falling in love with it. Schultz sent her photos of Ela and Walter for inspiration. Rodriguez is the one who decided Tom would have fangs and birthday hats as horns.

When Schultz got to the part of the book where Lola begins to question herself – when she wants to change herself because of what Tom the Troll has said – her grandchildren stopped her.

“Why would Lola think she has to be someone else?” they asked.

“And that is exactly what I wanted. I wanted them to notice this before Lola does,” Schultz says.

Schultz felt like it was working.

“I wanted to be able to show girls this,” she says. “That they don’t need to change who they are. So much happens to women. People comment on their appearance and make us feel we don’t measure up to their standards.”

The troll in this book is meant to be a little funny, with a homemade costume and leaves draped over him.

But Schultz is aware of the trolls that have crept or leapt into her life, and those of other public figures. Some have threatened her or her husband, and that has resulted in higher security.

She still shares stories and posts photos. She isn’t going to let them take away her belief in herself.

“I post these because I want every woman who sees them, including my granddaughters who might stumble upon them many years from now, to know what took me too long to learn,” she wrote. “Every time someone stoops to attacking our looks, our age, or our gender, we win. They are unhappy people leading with their injuries, and they want us to feel demoralized and ashamed.“

And so “Lola and the Troll” is a book about a child. But it really is a book about a teenage girl questioning the comments on her Instagram photo. And about a woman who keeps her opinions to herself because people mock her appearance in return. And about a national columnist and bestselling author who might feel vulnerable – but doesn’t give up.

“You don’t let them tell you who you are. I want for us to be brave and not let the trolls in,” she says.

The heroes in real life

Like all those real-life women, Lola needs somebody to look up to. So while Lola is the hero of the story, her hero is a woman named Ms. Sneesby.

Ms. Sneesby, one day, wants to know why Lola's beautiful hair is hidden in a bun, why her lovely voice is now just a whisper. She asks, “Where is my friend?” She helps Lola see that she doesn’t need to hide who she is.

In a book by Schultz – who loved to buy her children books and makes the bookstore her favorite destination with her grandchildren – is it any wonder that Ms. Sneesby is a bookseller?

Bookstores championed Schultz’s first novel, which debuted in June 2020 at the start of the pandemic. She couldn’t do in-person events, but booksellers recommended her book and it soon was on the New York Times bestseller list.

“I love what bookstores stand for in the community,” she says.

Now her fourth book is headed to their shelves. Published by Razorbill, it’s set to be released Tuesday.

Her now 8-year-old grandson Milo took an early copy of the book, with simple black and white illustrations, back to his house during a visit just over a year ago.

Her daughter called recently with a revelation. She said it would be best shared with a photo. In it, Milo proudly holds a book, his classmates all around it smiling. That book was “Lola and the Troll” and the teacher said it was the children’s favorite. The advance copy was a hit.

Schultz calls it her first picture book. She chooses her words carefully and intentionally.

Her first novel, she mentions, came out when she was 62.

Schultz is 66 now.

She has another novel in the works, and it’s not time to share the details, but for fans of “Erietown,” it’s not the sequel. Not yet, she says.

These days, Schultz is busy. She teaches at Denison University, writes, is an active grandmother and soon will begin campaigning with her husband. His Senate seat is up and it is expected to be a hotly contested race. Schultz remembers the last time she devoted herself to campaigning. It was just two years after she and Brown had married. She took a leave of absence from her column to help. She also wrote a compelling book, “… and His Lovely Wife,” about the journey.

So much of her life now revolves around children – writing about issues to improve their lives, and those of her grandchildren.

“For my grandchildren, who make me brave,” reads the dedication in “Lola and the Troll.”

And, she says, she’s having wicked fun in her life now. “I’m so excited to get to meet new kids with this book,” she says. “What gets me excited is to see kids react to the book.”

That fear she had in the beginning has given way to sweet Lola and her friends. Characters that helped tell Schultz what to write.

“You may not know who you are reaching when you write,” she says. “But if you write from the heart, you will reach someone.”