Ziggy & Zeke:
Even When You're Mad

Jeffrey Hook didn't write Ziggy & Zeke for his kids. He doesn't have any.

He wrote it for the kid he used to be.

Jeff grew up angry. Not the kind of angry that fades after a tantrum—the kind that gets you labeled "the problem child," the kind that lands you in a children's facility because the adults in your life don't know what to do with you. He didn't have a father. He didn't have anyone who stayed. And the anger that everyone saw as defiance was really just a little boy screaming for someone—anyone—to show up and not leave.

Nobody did. Until one man did.

A volunteer from the Big Brothers program in Hartford, Connecticut walked into Jeff's life—and never walked out. The first time they met, he asked Jeff a simple question: "What do you want to do when you grow up?" And this angry, neglected boy who had every reason to stop believing looked up and said: "I want to graduate high school, join the military, go to college, and write a book."

Most people would have smiled politely and moved on. This man didn't. He didn't just mentor Jeff. He adopted him. He became his father. He looked at a boy the world had given up on and said three words that changed everything: "This one's mine."

Jeff still calls him Dad today. And after all these years, Dad still can't believe what that angry little boy became—because Jeff accomplished every single one of those childhood dreams. He graduated high school. He served in the United States military. He went to college. He built a 35-year career in broadcast television operations. He earned a 2nd degree black belt. He married the love of his life and held that marriage for 28 years.

And then, at 60 years old, he kept his last promise to that little boy. He wrote the book.

But it was a random video on television—a real frog leaping onto a snake's head to save its friend—that showed him what the book needed to be about.

"That's it," Jeff thought. "That's what friendship really looks like. Someone has to write this for kids."

So at 60 years old, he did.

Years later, working the overnight shift as a broadcast operations manager, Jeff had an unexpected epiphany while watching episodes of Nanny 911 in the control room. Watching those children act out on screen, he suddenly saw himself—the tantrums, the rage, the desperate behavior. And for the first time, he understood: that angry little boy wasn't bad. He just wanted someone to pay attention. He wanted someone who wouldn't walk away.

That revelation poured straight into the pages of Ziggy & Zeke.

Ziggy & Zeke: Even When You're Mad isn't just a children's book about two frogs learning to say sorry. It's a truth Jeff spent a lifetime learning, wrapped in a story simple enough for a three-year-old to understand: real friends don't run away—even when they're mad.

The first time he read the finished book, he cried. Not because it was sad. Because it was the book he wished someone had read to him when he was five.