As a little boy, Conor Sammartin was hesitant if he had to face something new.
He often replied to his mother, Barbara Bedner, with the phrase, “Yeah, but…” in an attempt to avoid unfamiliar things.
Bedner, who was born in New Kensington and grew up in Springdale, would encourage her son by holding his hand to help him take one brave, tiny step at a time into the unknown.
Years later, as Sammartin sat by his mother’s bedside in her final days, it made him realize that even adults can be hesitant during certain moments — moments like losing a parent. As he held his mother’s hand and listened to her favorite song, “What the World Needs Now is Love” by Dionne Warwick, his mom left the world peacefully on Sept. 30, 2024. She was 77.
It was at that moment, inspired by the song and his mother’s love, that Sammartin realized he needed to publish a book with similar messaging. He wrote a children’s picture book, “The Rabbit in the Moon,” about a character his mother had created when he was young. Having started it years earlier, the book captured a tale of how it feels when someone we love believes in us.
Yabbit the Rabbit
“My mother always wanted it to become a children’s book but never felt confident enough to write it,” said Sammartin, 46, who lives in Mexico City with his wife, Krissy. “When her Alzheimer’s advanced in 2024, I made the decision to create the story for her, even though she could no longer remember the character she created.”
But Sammartin remembered.
The book follows Yabbit the Rabbit, a hesitant little rabbit who avoids new things, worries about “what ifs,” and would rather hide than try. Yabbit is tentative until he takes one tiny hop at a time and discovers that courage isn’t loud or flashy, Sammartin said. “It’s quiet. It grows. And it begins with a single, wobbly step.”
In the book, a young snail looks to a rabbit, and his ability to jump, to help the snail get his grandfather’s shell up to the moon. The rabbit tells the snail he’s concerned he might not be able to jump that high. So the rabbit and the snail go in search of help from a wolf, who encourages them to seek the guidance of a wise old owl. The owl says the rabbit should hold the shell and help the snail say farewell.
A message for families
In Sammartin’s farewell to his mother, he remembered how she taught him that sometimes in life you need to take one tiny hop at a time. It’s a way to slowly overcome fear or to deal with a trying situation.
“The book isn’t a clinical guide but a gentle message of courage when life asks you to do the hard thing before you feel ready,” Sammartin said. “Moving my mom to memory care was the hardest moment of my life and took a lot of tiny, brave steps for me that led up to taking her there.”
He said that type of bravery can be quiet and imperfect but still real.
“A lot of adults read the book and go, ‘Wait, that’s me,’ and that’s why it ends up being a keepsake for the whole family, not just a bedtime book for kids,” Sammartin said.
Honoring the spark
In his mother’s final months, Sammartin was able to introduce the characters to her. He said the day she died, he knew he had to finish the story. “Unfortunately, I was never able to read “The Rabbit in the Moon” to my mother, but I was able to read her a story of Yabbit the Rabbit and Momma Rabbit, a character based on her.”
Sammartin, who goes by the author name KD Schnee, said that because of his parents, Pittsburgh will always be home. The name KD comes from a cat Sammartin had, and Schnee was his first dog. The final design of Yabbit the Rabbit was inspired by his dog, Lou.
“When I learned of my mother’s failing health, I knew it was time for me to bring him to life while she was still with us,” Sammartin said.
As a child, Sammartin’s family visited Mexico once a year and he fell in love with its culture, people, food, history, and climate.
When searching for an illustrator, Sammartin mentioned his work on the book to the baristas at a local coffee shop. One of them said they had the perfect person for him: Rod Lazo.
“He’s incredible. It was one of those things I thought was going to be the most challenging aspects of creating this book and this universe, was finding an illustrator,” Sammartin said. “My father always kind of tried to instill it into me. It’s not always what you know, it’s who you know, your network.”
Lazo said, via email, he first went over the text several times picturing the progress of the story in his head and trying to visualize what each background would look like, how the characters would be spread across the pages, and how they would look and feel.
“I did the preliminary sketching, designing the characters along the way,” Lazo said. “(Conor) and I wanted them to be memorable and endearing to the families reading our book. Once I had settled on how the characters would look, I did the colored thumbnails for the pages. I wanted to make sure the colors helped in telling the story as much as the characters did, giving the right mood to each moment.
“From then on it was a matter of cleaning up, tweaking with the colors and composition as I saw fit. It was a very challenging journey but one that was very fun to thread and satisfying to finish.”
His father, Richard, who was born in Clairton, would read to his son at bedtime every night.
“My father always encouraged me to read more and he still does to this day,” Sammartin said. “When my mother was pregnant with me, my father was reading Trinity by Leon Uris and that is where my name comes from.”
Reframing courage
“Adults still hesitate and display avoidance behaviors just like when we were kids. We’ve just learned to hide it behind busyness, perfectionism or waiting until we feel ready,” Sammartin said. “’The Rabbit in the Moon’ works for grown-ups because it reframes courage as a practice, not a personality trait: one small, imperfect step that rebuilds trust in yourself. That’s why it lands as both a bedtime story and a quiet mirror, because the child you’re reading to and the adult reading it are often learning the same lesson at the same time.”
Completing the book became an act of devotion for Sammartin and a way to honor his mother’s imagination, preserve their shared story and ensure her spark lives on in the hands of families everywhere.
“I was with her bedside when she passed, and I was able to read her the first version of the story and show her some of the rough sketches of the characters that we came up with,” Sammartin said. “She wasn’t responsive. Everybody says that hearing is one of the last senses to go. I can’t say for certain, but I hope that she heard me.”
The book is available on Amazon, at Barnes & Noble and walmart.com. The cost is $16.99.
