As a primary education teacher in Toronto, Canada, Taline Dorna was accustomed to having a lesson plan for her students; always organized and ready to inspire each of her students anew every day. No doubt, KnowTheGlow Co-Founder, Megan Webber, envied the backdrop of her zoom call with Taline, noting the perfectly appointed cabinets, drawers, and wall-mounted organizer—all tell-tale signs of a teacher extraordinaire!
Even when she and her husband Serge welcomed baby number three, she was on target to keep on top of her life; that is until life threw her a curveball when her youngest child was diagnosed with RB at 5 months of age. She came home to her then 3 ½-year-old and 2-year-old and found herself for the first time at a loss for words. How was she going to be able to explain to her young children what their cute new member of the family was diagnosed with? Taline decided that if she put on her teacher hat she would be able to figure out a way to speak to her children on their level about their sibling’s diagnosis. The result of this epiphany was Taline’s book, The Extraordinary Eye. Taline wanted to put out a hopeful message of awareness so that children would not feel stigmatized with their eye prostheses.
Writing the script for the book proved to be the easy part, but with limited funds, having it illustrated and published would prove to be slightly harder. Thanks to her RB family group another RB mom who had a publishing company reached out to her and was so thrilled with the project, that Taline’s goal of having the book published and placed in the hands of RB children and families around the world soon became a reality. Taline explained that while her initial focus was on RB, she truly believes that the hopeful and educational messages that KnowTheGlow promotes on their website and social media drive home the importance of a broader awareness about the Glow and how you can detect so many eye diseases far more common than RB.
KnowTheGlow applauds Taline Dorna for creating such a terrific book that helps to create awareness of the Glow while also bringing a hopeful message to children and families with RB around the world.
Do you want to meet Taline and discover The Extraordinary Eye? Tune in to KnowTheGlow Live stream of Taline reading her book on Sunday, July 18th at 2 pm EST.
