Books
Children
Nature
Fast Facts


The Big Picture

For as long as I can remember, I have loved books, children, and nature. Today, these three threads weave the fabric of my career. Let’s see how all of this got started.


Books

Both of my parents valued books and print and they began reading to me when I was very young. I remember the Better Homes and Gardens Story Book with its rebus story of The Little Red Hen and the poem The Swing by Robert Louis Stevenson. It also contained The House that Jack Built with pictures by Randolph Caldecott. I know that I read that story over a hundred times before I was ten years old, which probably influenced my two cumulative stories – This Is The Sunflower– and This Is The Rain that I wrote more than 40 years later.

In my elementary years, I was fortunate to have teachers that would let me read when I completed my assigned work. I know that I read every biography in our school library. And there were a few, like Clara Barton, Thomas Edison and Amelia Earhart that I read over and over again. Last year I was particularly tickled when Capstone Press asked me to write books on these three people. It’s a wonderful feeling to know that my biographies are in many school libraries waiting for young readers to discover them.

I can still remember the day that I got my first public library card. It opened up a vast world of possibilities. The local library had rooms filled with books. And if that wasn’t the biggest wonder in my life, along came the bookmobile. Once a week that long, silvery bus would stop at the end of my street. As soon as I heard the squeal of its brakes, I would grab my books and run all the way, sometimes arriving before the librarian had placed the metal steps outside the door.

One summer, my friend Mary Kay and I spent our afternoons reading library books under the maple tree in my backyard. Once, I read Treasure Island and she read Kidnapped. The next day we traded and read the other book. On the third day we talked about our favorite parts. It was heaven to have a friend who liked to read as much as I did. We devoured Heidi, Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm, Black Beauty, and many more before the summer ended.




Children

I began babysitting when I was ten years old. The children and I would make puppet plays, sing songs, paint and read books. We’d set up tents outside, study nature, play games and read books. One time, when I was fifteen years old, several neighborhood couples took a vacation together and left me in charge of their seven children. Wow! We never had a dull moment. And guess what?! We didn’t watch T.V.

Many years later, in 1976 and 1978, our two sons, Adam and Wyatt were born. I had so much fun being a stay-at-home mom and watching them discover the world. They taught me the importance of the daily read-aloud. Both of our boys learned to love books from an early age. They asked to be read to several times a day. By age four, they both were independent readers, but we continued to read aloud as a family.

My love of children has never diminished. That’s why I enjoyed my eighteen years in the classroom. Today, as a visiting author and consultant, I still get excited to meet and speak with students. Children are curious, honest, and poetic. They see the world in its purest form and are willing to share that with us if we only ask.




Nature

As a child, I also loved the natural world. I learned to garden with my father who grew the biggest tomatoes and red raspberries in Ft. Wayne, Indiana. OK, so I really didn’t enjoy the hot, dirty part of gardening then, like I do now, but I did like the picking and eating of all the fruits and vegetables.

I didn’t have any pets when I was young because of bad allergies, so I would wait and watch for any animal that came into our backyard. I made temporary homes for many turtles, baby rabbits, cats, and birds and offered them all the tender loving care that I could share. When traveling, I would always ask my parents to stop and visit the local zoo. My favorite animals to see were the bears, large cats (tigers and lions), and buffalo.

Besides plants and animals, I have always been enchanted with rocks. I would spend hours searching through piles of gritty stone in our driveway to find fossils. When we drove to Massachusetts to visit my grandmother, we would stop along the road and wade through streams, searching for large pieces of quartz to bring home. Today I still have a rock and fossil collection. In fact, one my favorite afternoon treats, is to stop at a road cut and look for trilobites, horn coral, or blastoids from the Ordovician period. My two sons even surprised me on my fiftieth birthday with the fossil of a complete crinoid. What a treasure!!
Some of my happiest days were spent at water’s edge. My parents took me to the Great Lakes and I walked along the beaches, examining every rock and piece of driftwood, marveling that I couldn’t see the other shore. During my visits to the local park, I watched the tadpoles, frogs, and fish in the pond. Or I walked across the log that took me from shore to a small island in the river. Once my family drove to the ocean. I sat for hours, mesmerized by the sound of the waves and the enormity of the sea. I also know that I picked-up every shell, and studied shape, color, and size. And I still love water. Some of our best family vacations have been spent snorkeling in the hidden world of tropical fish, sea stars, sponges, octopuses, rays, coral, barracuda, and sharks.

So, here I am today. Writing for children, weaving my life-long loves of books, children, and nature. It’s a wonderful life, and now that I think of it, it’s been a great journey getting here!


Fast Facts

My husband Ted and I live in NE Indiana on four acres.

We have two German Shepherds named Jackson and Bullet that live outside and in Ted's woodworking shop.

Indoors, we have two new cats. Calvin is a white kitten with a gray and black striped tail. Hobbes is a tiger cat. They are best friends.

Over the years we have shared our home with three other cats- Gramps, Charlotte, and Dickens- and a variety of tropical fish.

Besides reading and writing and working with children in schools, I like to:

vacation with my family,
garden,
laugh,
mow grass,
bicycle,
hike,
listen to music,
meet new people,
think,
canoe,
cook and eat good food,
watch movies,
walk on a beach,
visit zoos, botanical gardens, and natural history museums,
and sleep.

I dislike SHOPPING more than anything else! (except in bookstores and bakeries)

I don't have one favorite book, I have hundreds. But my favorite book as a child was Black Beauty.