Lisa Lyne Flynn is a Castor Gardens native and Fox Chase Cancer Center nurse who also performs as a singer/guitar player for the band LisaChristSuperstar.
A vegan for more than 30 years, Flynn used her musical background when writing her new book, You Don’t Eat Meat?
Flynn wrote the book like a song.
The book centers on a girl named Molly, who is constantly teased during lunch at school for her food choices. A boy says, “Chicken is so yummy,” while others say they like bacon, ham and even Spam.
Molly tells her classmates why she doesn’t eat meat, spreading her love and kindness as she passionately stands up for her beliefs. She doesn’t want animals to feel pain. In responding to her classmates, she said, “Animals, so full of love, have eyes and hearts and souls. I could not hurt one of them and eat them on a roll.”
In the end, the same classmates who bullied her embrace her love for animals and her cruelty-free lifestyle.
“It was so much fun,” Flynn said of writing the book.
Ben Fidler illustrated the book.
“Isn’t it adorable,” she said. “It fit everything I wanted to say perfectly.”
Flynn, 57, attended Solis-Cohen Elementary School, Woodrow Wilson and Northeast High, and now lives in Glenside. In addition to her work as a nurse and musician, she co-owns Kadillac Tattoo, formerly on Rising Sun Avenue in Lawncrest and now in Hatboro and on Germantown Avenue in Mount Airy,
She has written another book, The Death Cheaters, which combines her musical talents with her love for fantasy.
Flynn is a big fan of the Beatles, and is inspired by Paul McCartney, a vegetarian who promotes a meat-free Monday initiative and has been known to say that if slaughterhouses had glass windows, nobody would eat meat.
Flynn became a vegan due to her love for animals.
“We don’t need to harm any animal,” she said.
Flynn has had up to 10 rescue pets at a time, and today has a cat and three dogs.
“They fight like cats and dogs,” she joked.
While Flynn believes You Don’t Eat Meat? is geared to folks of all ages, she thinks young people will especially love the message of the book.
“There’s not a lot of support for kids who don’t eat meat,” she said. ••
To buy You Don’t Eat Meat?, go to amazon.com, visit the author’s website at https://www.lisalyneflynn.com/ or attend Philly VegFest on June 8, from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m., at 15th Street and Passyunk Avenue in South Philadelphia.
