A Mother’s Faith, a Son’s Hesitation – and the Children’s Book Born From Both
L-R: Barbara Sammartin (Bedner) on her birthday, surrounded by her sons Conor, Joshua and Jeffrey – and the characters of the children’s picture book “The Rabbit in the Moon”; “The Rabbit in the Moon” helps kids build courage, confidence and emotional growth; the book was born from Barbara’s experiences, delivered as a message of hope for future generations.
“The Rabbit in the Moon”: The Story His Mother Never Stopped Believing In
Years before he excelled in football and track at McHenry High School in the mid-1990s, Conor Sammartin was known for something else: hesitation. When his mother, Barbara, asked him to try something new or tackle a difficult task, his most common reply was a familiar shield: “Yeah, but …”
She heard it so often that it became a family refrain. “No ‘Yeah buts,’ rabbit,” she’d say, half teasing, half determined. Before long, she gave him a nickname that stuck: Yabbit Rabbit.
A Mother’s Faith, a Story Waiting to Be Written
In her imagination, “Yabbit” became more than a nickname. He became a character, and the seed of a children’s book she wanted to write for kids who hesitate and avoid big, scary-feeling challenges. For years, she encouraged Conor to bring the story to life, especially when he was in college. She believed in it the way mothers do: with that stubborn, steady faith that doesn’t require evidence.
But Conor wasn’t ready.
She asked. He stalled. Life moved. The story stayed in the background, like a porch light left on.
Even so, the idea never fully disappeared. When Conor returned to Chicago in 2004, he registered the domain yabbitrabbit.com and then did what many of us do with a dream we “mean to get to someday.” He let it sit.
When ‘Someday’ Lingers Too Long
In 2007, he had what would become his final email exchange with his mother about Yabbit. She had met a children’s book illustrator and felt it could be the moment the story finally became real. Conor — wrapped up in his career and moving at the speed of adulthood — didn’t see the urgency. She didn’t push with guilt. She just didn’t let go of hope.
That hope turned into something else in July 2024, when Conor received a phone call from his mother’s memory care home. A nurse told him her health was deteriorating and they didn’t expect she would be with the family much longer.
The Moment ‘Now’ Arrived
That was the moment the “someday” snapped into “now.”
“My mother had given me an incredible gift, an original idea for a children’s picture book,” Conor says. “And it collected dust for almost 30 years.”
That same month, he started writing. It was painstaking. Conor had written screenplays before, but children’s picture books are their own discipline, with different muscles: precision, rhythm, restraint, and a kind of emotional honesty that can’t hide behind cleverness. He also felt a race he couldn’t win on a calendar. His goal wasn’t just to finish the book. It was to finish it in time to read it to her.
One Last Reading
In September, another call came. He should get there as soon as possible.
Conor traveled to Pittsburgh with a draft he believed might be the final version. At her bedside, the night before she passed, he read it to her. He also showed her an image of Yabbit and a mama rabbit character his illustrator had completed, bringing her long-imagined world into something tangible.
Starting Over After Goodbye
After her death, Conor returned home and realized the truth: what he had written wasn’t yet a story meant to live on a child’s bookshelf. It was a thank you. A final goodbye.
So he started over from scratch.
He spent months studying mythology, including Aztec, Greek and Celtic threads, and how cultural stories help children hold fear without being consumed by it. He studied rhyme, meter and verse. He researched hesitation and avoidance behaviors in children, then folded those insights into something more universal — a character kids could recognize in themselves without being labeled or singled out.
A Story That Makes Room for Fear
The result became The Rabbit in the Moon, a picture book built on a simple premise: every child hesitates sometimes, especially when something feels too big, too new or too uncertain. And often, what looks like “refusing” is really fear trying to protect them.
What makes the story distinctive is that it doesn’t treat hesitation like a flaw. It treats it like a moment in the journey. Yabbit doesn’t become fearless. He learns that courage can show up as a small decision, a tiny brave step, taken while your heart still feels wobbly.
The Story She Always Knew Was There
In a time when families are surrounded by noise, uncertainty and constant pressure to be “fine,” Conor hopes the book offers something quieter: a way for kids and parents to talk about fear without making it bigger, and to practice moving forward without pretending it’s easy.
And in a full-circle twist, the character that began as a childhood nickname now lives as the story Conor’s mother always believed could exist — even when he didn’t.