Friday, 28 August 2026 04:35 PM
Company Update
Independent creative studio founded by author Kevin Patrick McCourt creates original stories celebrating kindness, perseverance, family, friendship, adoption and children of all abilities.
PHILADELPHIA, PA / ACCESS Newswire / August 28, 2026 / McCourt Family Studios, LLC, an independent creative studio founded by author Kevin Patrick McCourt, is building a growing collection of original children's books around a simple idea: every child deserves the opportunity to see friendship, possibility and belonging reflected in the stories they read.
McCourt Family Studios publishes imaginative stories featuring memorable characters, families and communities while naturally incorporating themes of kindness, perseverance, adoption, recovery, inclusion and acceptance. The studio also proudly stands behind the message "Adopt, Don't Shop," encouraging families considering bringing an animal into their homes to give rescue and shelter animals a chance to become part of their families.
McCourt writes under his own name as well as the pen name Feeny McCourt, which he uses for his Billie With The Rainbow Tail stories. The name Feeny McCourt is a deeply personal homage to Kevin's late parents. The pen name draws inspiration from his mother's maiden name, Feeney, while joining it with the McCourt family name-allowing the memory of both of his parents to remain woven into the creative work of McCourt Family Studios.
At the center of the studio's work is a commitment to creating entertaining stories first-stories in which children of different backgrounds and abilities simply belong.
Rather than treating inclusion as a lesson that must be explained, McCourt Family Studios incorporates it naturally into the worlds its characters inhabit. Children using wheelchairs, walkers, prosthetics or cochlear implants can share the page with everyone else without their differences necessarily becoming the subject of the story.
"Children notice who gets invited into the story," said McCourt. "I want our books to create worlds where there is room for everybody. A child shouldn't have to be the lesson of the book simply because they experience the world differently."
One of the studio's signature characters is Billie With The Rainbow Tail, a rescue Maltese whose colorful adventures emphasize friendship, adoption, kindness and belonging. Billie's story reflects one of McCourt Family Studios' core values: Adopt, Don't Shop. Her adventures celebrate not only the extraordinary bond between people and their rescued animals, but also the idea that sometimes family is something we find-and sometimes, in a way, our rescued animals choose us, too.
McCourt Family Studios also explores subjects that are part of real families' lives but are not always represented in children's literature. In My Name Is Liam and My Dad Is in Recovery, young readers meet Liam and experience his family's story through a compassionate, age-appropriate perspective. Rather than defining a parent or family by addiction, the story focuses on recovery, love, family relationships and the possibility of getting better-reinforced by its hopeful message, "YOU GET BETTER."
Another of the studio's characters, Jimmy Benz, has an especially long history. Jimmy Benz and The Magical Rock brings to life a story McCourt originally wrote as a student at Cardinal Dougherty High School decades ago. The childhood story remained with him for years before eventually becoming a published book and part of the growing McCourt Family Studios universe.
That handwritten childhood story ultimately became part of something much larger.
After years spent in other professions-including the restaurant industry and, later, caregiving-McCourt returned to storytelling and established McCourt Family Studios, LLC in 2026, transforming ideas accumulated over a lifetime into an independent creative company.
Today, the studio continues developing new stories and characters while expanding the worlds already introduced through Billie, Liam, Jimmy Benz and other McCourt Family Studios creations.
The company is also looking beyond the printed page, with a long-term vision of bringing its original characters and stories into animation, film and other media.
For McCourt, however, growth isn't measured solely by the number of titles bearing the studio's name.
The larger ambition is to build a recognizable family of characters children can grow up knowing-characters who make them laugh, encourage curiosity, introduce them to experiences different from their own and remind them that there is a place for them in the story.
About McCourt Family Studios, LLC
McCourt Family Studios, LLC is an independent creative studio founded by author and creator Kevin Patrick McCourt. Through original children's literature and developing entertainment properties, the studio creates imaginative stories centered on family, friendship, kindness, perseverance, recovery, adoption and inclusion. The studio proudly supports "Adopt, Don't Shop," a value represented by its beloved rescue Maltese character, Billie With The Rainbow Tail. McCourt also writes the Billie With The Rainbow Tail stories under the pen name Feeny McCourt, an homage to his late parents inspired by his mother's maiden name, Feeney.
Media Contact
Kevin Patrick McCourt
Founder, President & CEO
McCourt Family Studios, LLC
[email protected]
SOURCE: McCourt Family Studios