Coloring Book Illustrates River Life

Life on the river can be hard for children to picture. Amber Box hopes her first coloring book, “Blue Collar Kids: Towboats At Work,” helps change that.

Box’s husband, Terral RiverService Capt. James Box, and his career are part of the inspiration behind the coloring book. While their three children, Lane, 16, Paxton, 13, and River, 8, have had opportunities to see what their father does for a living, not all children do. Box designed the book so that even young children can better understand what a parent may be doing when working away from home.

“I felt that it was a visual way for a kid to understand why their Daddy might be away for 28 days, in most cases,” she said.

Box took most of the photos that were converted to line drawings for the images, and she used artificial intelligence along with help from James to adjust them to ensure accuracy.

“Around the beginning of April, I started dabbling in it,” Box said. “I just sat down one night, and my husband was working nights, and I said ‘I want to do something I’ve never seen.’ ”

Box knew there were coloring books about police officers and firefighters, careers that children are often interested in. Why not make one for working on towboats?

The result is 24 images, each including a short description, such as “crew change day,” “loading at grain elevator,” “cutting lines” and “making bridges,” designed to be short and easy to read, either alone or with a parent. She also shows examples of flat deck barges, rake barges, covered barges and a chemical barge.

None of the boats in the pages have nameboards or are identifiable as company vessels.

“I wanted it to pertain to everybody,” Box said.

Her favorite image is the book cover, which shows a cartoon version of her husband waving from the wheelhouse as two cartoon hands work on deck. It is based on an image Box took at a boat ramp after bringing some special treats to him and his crew.

Throughout the drawing and publication process, James has been her biggest encourager, she said.

“He was the one the whole time who said this is going to be great. People are going to love this. He has been telling more people, honestly, than I think I have,” Box said.

She said that since publishing it, she has also gotten feedback from people within the river industry who have said the book could be a tool to help build awareness of careers on the river to young children who might grow up to be the next generation of towboaters.

Box submitted ebook and softcover versions of the coloring book to Amazon on April 23. She sold 10 last month at $9.99 each, of which she gets only a small part, but she said the project is not about making money anyway. Instead, she hopes it is allowing children to “see the big picture” when it comes to river life and perhaps even to “draw” them toward a successful career.

Featured photo caption: Amber Box turned her family’s experience in the towboat industry into a children’s coloring book designed to educate and inspire. Blue Collar Kids: Towboats At Work features illustrations of towboat operations, barges and everyday life on the river, helping children connect with the work their parents do and explore future career possibilities. (Images courtesy of Amber Box)