The name of the book? “Where’s the Poop.” It will be released on Nov. 15.

The short book is aimed at young toddlers and is intended to be both funny and educational, introducing grammar to kids with a premise they can laugh at. The book is based on its two author’s experiences as parents.

“It's something I think a lot of families can relate to, if you change diapers, or change enough of them, you're gonna have a lot of things happen,” Ficklin said. “Some things can run away from you.”

The parents in the book are based on its two authors. Rosa and Ficklin are both first-time parents, and their friendship has led to conversations about the experience of parenting young children. 

“We would exchange stories about our babies because they're basically born at the same time, during the pandemic, same age,” Ficklin said. “Going through similar things, being home all day, working with our kids trying to navigate work and family life balance.”

The story follows a family as they try to find the missing contents of their youngest child’s diaper – something Rosa and Ficklin can confirm has happened to them before, despite their best efforts.

Both authors said the book is written to teach young toddlers prepositions, or words that indicate the direction or location of an object. Writing the book, they said, came naturally.

“We've always been the type of people who, yes, we can practice law, yes, we can be our attorneys, but there's so much more to us than our title,” Rosa said.

Ficklin said the book “wrote itself,” and that they wrote it in around 45 minutes together this past December. Rosa credited Ficklin with being able to tell the story from a comical standpoint.

In addition to providing education and entertainment to toddlers, Ficklin said the book provides an important message to kids that might not see themselves represented in traditional children’s books.

“Representation matters, we have two brown babies on this book, and that's important as well, because you don’t see that very often in bookstores,” he said.

The two authors always had a wide distribution in mind as their end goal, but Ficklin said he didn’t expect their book to be sold at a major bookstore so fast. The pair is also planning on releasing a podcast later this month, called the 3L Podcast. 

“In law school, you start off as a one L … and then you make your way up to 2L, and then ultimately 3L,” Rosa said. But the name has a double meaning; the three L’s also stand for "life, love, and law."

Rosa, who previously worked as an advisor for students applying to law school, said she wants the podcast to help others break through the same barriers that she has faced throughout her life.

“People talk about the wins, but they don't talk about the lessons,” Ficklin said. “Because I don't think you ever lose, you just win or you learn.”

Rosa and Ficklin remain connected to their time at MSU. While Ficklin was in talks with the manager of the Lansing Barnes and Noble store, Rosa returned to the area for MSU’s Homecoming weekend. The pair did a photoshoot at the College of Law and their kids met for the first time. During this time the Barnes and Noble manager offered the authors a contract; the book will be available there exclusively.

“It fell into place, it was all a blessing,” Ficklin said.