Ann Higginbottom’s story begins right where she is today, give or take a couple of blocks. Long before she became the successful author of Bigger Than Me, executive director of Kershaw’s challenge and PTA president, Ann grew up walking distance from Hyer Elementary. Now, living across the street from her alma mater elementary school and leading the school board just like her mother did, Ann has managed to intertwine all her passions into everything she does: baseball, family and community.
Upon graduating from Texas A&M, Ann moved back to Highland Park where she met and married fellow HP grad and pastor at Park Cities Presbyterian Church Robby Higginbottom. With their two baseball-loving sons, the Higginbottoms moved a couple doors down from Ann’s sister Ellen and brother-in-law, Los Angeles Dodgers pitcher Clayton Kershaw. “It's so full circle,” she says. “We're back in the community that we grew up knowing and loving, and our boys are playing it out as well.”
Driven by her passion for family and community, Ann became the executive director of Kershaw’s Challenge, a charity started by the Kershaws to serve vulnerable and at-risk children living in Los Angeles, Dallas, Zambia and the Dominican Republic. The culmination of this work, combined with her family’s love of baseball and her knack for writing comes to life in Ann’s latest book: Bigger Than Me.
Ann had always longed for rich, relatable literature for her kids. Having published a few devotionals and children’s books, she knew how to navigate the process of writing and publishing a book, but the idea for Bigger Than Me came to her years before that process began.
“Probably about five years ago, I had the idea for the book,” she says, “I feel like the Lord gave me the vision and the title, so I wrote down ‘Bigger Than Me’ on a sticky note, and it sat in my bathroom drawer for years. Then one day, about two years ago, I sat down and wrote it — it came to me really naturally. Then, my husband, who’s a great writer, edited it for me, and I printed it out and left it on my sister’s countertop.”
A true story told through the eyes of Ann’s nephew Charley, Bigger Than Me shows what it’s like for a little boy growing up with a father in the MLB. “The whole concept is that he's walking into this world, and everything's bigger than him, and his dad is so much bigger than him,” Ann says. “He's just seeing it all with these wide eyes. And then it's dad, Clayton, saying, buddy, that's because the story is a lot bigger, and we're part of a bigger purpose.”
Fittingly sold at Dodgers Stadium, the book allows kids to put themselves in Charley’s shoes, consider what they love (whether that be baseball or something else) and understand that there’s a greater purpose behind loving something — similar to how Ann’s family's love of baseball allowed them to build Kershaw’s Challenge. Ann’s beautiful words are accompanied by illustrated portraits based on the Kershaws and Higginbottoms family photos, making Bigger Than Me not only a positive message, but a gorgeous coffee table book as well.
Now, as Ann steps into her role as Hyer’s PTA president, everything she’s been working on has come to complement one another perfectly, and she’s looking forward to what the future holds.
“The beautiful thing is, everything I do is all woven together in a really special way: my work with Kershaw’s Challenge, the book, which is about baseball, and then conveniently, my theme for Hyer next year is ‘Home Run Hyer,’” she says. “So I’m excited to see those things grow together.”
Bigger Than Me can be found on Amazon and biggerthanme.com.
"I feel like the Lord gave me the vision and the title."