Author & Illustrator
Meet Cece Beans
Cece Beans is the author and illustrator of the Be and Breathe series, rhyming picture books about big feelings, small breaths, and the magic that happens when we learn to pause.
Creativity is Cece's passion. She has been creating ever since her first art class in 7th grade, but writing has always been her love language.
It started with a song in the car
Before Grumpy Duck was a book, it was a song Cece made up for her kids, driving through the mountains of Virginia. Years later, it became the first book in the Be and Breathe series: picture books built around real, usable calming techniques that families can carry off the page and into the messy moments of everyday life.
Her own journey with big feelings is woven into every page. Inspired by the playful rhymes of Shel Silverstein, Cece believes the best stories make you smile and make you think, and that a good rhyme can teach a child something a lecture never could.
Made by a mom, for caregivers living the same moments
Cece lives in the Blue Ridge mountains of Virginia, where she has spent years as a biological, foster and adoptive mother to both neurotypical and neurodivergent children. She knows firsthand that big emotions don't come with an off switch, and that the most powerful thing you can teach a child is how to find calm from the inside out.
- Biological, foster and adoptive mom
- A believer in therapy, for kids and for the grown-ups too
- Homeschool mom of 12 years, and a big supporter of whatever schooling option works for each family
- Local Charlottesville, Virginia author and indie small business owner
The long way here: twelve years at home, a waste business, and a blank page
For twelve years, Cece was a stay-at-home mom. Her days were homeschool lessons at the kitchen table, snacks, laundry, read-alouds and the hundred small things nobody puts on a résumé. She loved it. She also set her own creative work on a shelf, the way so many mothers do, and told herself she would get back to it someday.
Then, in 2021, she became a single mom. Someday turned into right now.
With no clear map, she did something that surprised even her: she bought a waste management business and ran it herself. Bins, routes, invoices, and early mornings, all on top of still being "Mom". It was not glamorous work, but it was steady, and she grew it. That business is what eventually bought her something she had never had before, financial freedom, and with it a little room to breathe.
She used that room for two things. She helps co-run a women's support group in Charlottesville and she picked the pencil back up.
Cece's Stories came out of that season: written by someone who has been overwhelmed at the kitchen table, who has had to find her own breath before she could help a child find theirs.
If you see yourself in any of this, you're in the right place.
- Homeschool parents: twelve years of kitchen-table lessons, good days and the ones you'd rather forget.
- Single moms: starting over, doing the math twice, and still showing up at bedtime.
- Entrepreneurs: running a business between school pickups, learning as you go.
- Anyone beginning again: it is not too late, and you are not behind.
Built one farmers market at a time
Every book on this site has been carried in a bin, unpacked onto a folding table and handed to a real family somewhere in Virginia. Cece has spent weekends at festivals and farmers markets, setting up the little wooden bookcase, smoothing out the tablecloth and reading rhymes out loud to whoever stops by. Those conversations, with the parents who say "oh, that's my kid," are what shaped the series.
The markets aren't going anywhere. You'll still find her out there with a table full of books and Warmies. But this website is a big next step in the journey, so the families who can't make it to a market in Virginia, and the ones who found her at a booth and want more, can bring these stories home from anywhere.
Thank you for being part of that. Every order here is a person, not a number, and she notices every single one.
Let's connect
I'm a real person just like you. I know the highs and the lows, and I would love to connect. If you want to say hello, share your own story, ask about the books, or talk about classroom and clinic sets, I'm available by email.
Cece@CecesStories.com
The books from Cece's Stories are written for every child learning to feel their feelings,
and for every grown-up learning right alongside them.
Big feelings, little breaths.
Follow along on Instagram: @CeceBeans.Author