Two children's books by Dr. Mary McCluskey, DSW, LCSW. The original world that became the animated series.
A diverse group of children walks through the Cosmos with Dr. Alfred Adler. By the end of their journey, they have discovered that every one of them leads in their own way — and they have named themselves Leaders of the Cosmos. The book that gave the animated series its name.
Episode 1 of the animated series adapts this book.
Buy on Amazon →Dr. Pierre Janet arrives in a time-traveling hot air balloon. The children learn to send their hardest feelings up — and let them go. "All hate evaporate!"
Translated into Ukrainian and distributed by Sean Penn's CORE Response to refugee families in Poland. A trauma-informed book about coping, healing, and the quiet acts of letting go.
Episode 2 of the animated series adapts this book.
Buy on Amazon →The watercolor paintings that illustrate Mary McCluskey's books are family art — a collaboration across three generations of women.
Fi Hailyn drew every child, every mentor, every animal. Her drawings were then incorporated into her grandmother's paintings. Her mother wrote the stories. Every frame of Leaders of the Cosmos is built to honor and translate that lineage into animation.
A mother. A daughter. A granddaughter. One world.
A clinical social worker who writes for the children she has spent her career walking alongside.
Dr. Mary McCluskey is a Doctor of Social Work (DSW, University of Pennsylvania) and Licensed Clinical Social Worker. She is faculty at NYU Silver School of Social Work and the founder of The Empowerment Opportunity LCSW, PLLC.
Her clinical practice anchors in Adlerian Individual Psychology — the framework that gives the series its philosophical heart. She trained at the American Institute for Psychoanalysis (AIP) and holds an MSW from Columbia School of Social Work.
Her children's books have been recognized by the Mom's Gold Choice Awards, and her work has been distributed internationally through Sean Penn's CORE Response to Ukrainian refugee families in Poland.
Mary will sign both books at the American Library Association annual conference in Chicago on June 27, 2026, where Episode 1 of Leaders of the Cosmos debuts.
Be the first to see Episode 1 when it premieres in Chicago this June.
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