Some of the most enduring children’s books don’t begin in a publishing house. They begin at bedtime, in the small, unguarded moments when a parent reaches for the right words to make a child feel safe. That’s exactly where Mona Liza Santos found her calling — not as an author with a plan, but as a mother in the middle of a pandemic, writing a single story for her son.
That story became Mama, I Love You, and it opened a door she never expected to walk through. “At the time, I had no idea the book would resonate with so many mothers and caregivers,” she says. “That was when I realized a story written from my own heart could also touch many other families.”
From one story to more than forty
What began as a private act of love has since grown into a body of work spanning more than 40 children’s books — rhyming picture books, self-love stories, mindfulness resources, and cultural narratives. The children’s author and founder of World Love Press writes toward a consistent center: kindness, confidence, belonging, resilience, and emotional literacy.
If that last term sounds clinical, Mona makes it plain. “Emotional literacy helps children understand how feelings work, both their own and other people’s,” she explains. Young children, she points out, often feel big emotions without the language to name them. Stories, in her view, give them that language — and something more. They “help children build empathy, respond with kindness, and handle difficult moments with more understanding,” she says.
A story about seeing yourself
Among the dozens of titles, one holds a particular kind of weight for her. The Filipino in Me celebrates culture, family, and identity, and its purpose is personal. “I wanted Filipino children to see themselves in a story and feel proud of who they are,” she says.
That intention came alive at the first Kwento at Kulay event at Seafood City, where she read the book aloud to families. What she noticed wasn’t the reading itself but what happened around it. Storytime, she recalls, brought strangers together — children, parents, and grandparents trading memories and connecting over their shared heritage. The moment reshaped how she thinks about where stories belong. “They do not belong only in libraries or bookstores,” she says. “They can bring people together anywhere families gather.”
A world of feeling, shared
Having traveled to more than 70 countries, the Filipino-American author draws on a wide map of cultures, though what she takes from it is less about difference than about the common thread running through all of it. “Even though our cultures may be different, we share many of the same feelings and hopes,” she says. Families everywhere, she has found, want love, kindness, belonging, and a better future for their children.
That perspective earned formal recognition this year, when she was named a 2026 TITAN Gold Winner in the Outstanding Female Entrepreneur category. For her, the honor carried a simple reminder: keep going. “Nothing is impossible when you work hard, believe in yourself, and continue doing what you truly love,” she says.
Ask her what she hopes a child carries away after closing one of her books, and the answer returns to where it all started. “I want children to believe in themselves and in their dreams,” she says. “I want them to know that their feelings matter.”
