Love Stays
Read-and-color stories for military families, built around deployment, milestones, everyday resilience, and connection across the miles.
Explore the series
About the author
Clayton B McLagan
Clayton writes read-and-color books that help children and families make sense of separation, changing routines, and the mix of emotions that can come with military deployment.
Why these books exist
Real moments became gentle stories.
The Love Stays series was inspired by Clayton’s family and their experience during a loved one’s deployment. He saw how ordinary moments—bedtime questions, missed milestones, video chats, family traditions, and the people who step closer—could hold happiness and heartache at the same time.
He created the series to give families a gentle way to read together, color together, and begin conversations children may not know how to start. The stories do not ask children to choose between being proud and being sad. They make room for every feeling.
At the center of every Love Stays story is one steady idea: distance can change the day, but it does not change the love.
The family behind the stories
Love Stays began close to home.
These books grew from a real family’s seasons of departure, connection, support, and reunion—and from the children at the heart of those moments.
The books
More than one kind of adventure.
Little Detours
A standalone cozy coloring book about friendship, small discoveries, and the joy of taking the scenic route.
See the standalone bookFind the story that meets your family where it is.
Each book creates space to slow down, color, listen, and remind a child that every feeling belongs.
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