19 Sept......just got word that our new book, An Alaska Adventure will arrive at the end of this month! Here's a page from one of the final edit checks.......Ilustration by Yuko Green. Yuko and I worked together on Winter is for Whales and had a lot of fun with this new book that tells the story of two kids who visit Alaska with their parents. Sarah and Cole head north from their home in Columbus, Ohio. They pan for gold, photograph brown bears and wolves, and Sarah falls for the Ravens!
I'm most proud of this book for a couple of reasons. It might be the first book to include a woman bush pilot. She's a former classmate of Sarah's mom from college days. They bump into her in a Fairbanks coffee shop and she takes them on a last minute journey to her home in Barrow. As Sarah says, "Beverly is Inupiat and so totally awesome --- she is a PILOT. She is going to fly us up to where her family lives in Barrow!" This leg of the trip leads to the blanket toss, illustrated above........and to Cole's meeting of Beverly's nephew who shares a love of basketball with the young traveler from Ohio.
I wanted to pay some tribute in this book to two of my all time favorite teachers. So, I enouraged young Sarah and Cole to journal each day and to send postcards back to their classmates at Columbus School for Girls and Wyandot Elementary. The postcards are for Paula Vertikoff and Charlotte Stiverson who teach with such loving grace......... Sarah got a little creative help from a real live student poet from another Ohio school. I'm happy to introduce her writing to you. After 30 years of trying to include kid writing in one of my books, here is the winning entry in a poetry contest designed just for this book:
HOW TO BE A RAVEN
BY ALEXUS
Always be the smart bird,
Always yell louder than any other singing bird,
Fly upside down for fun
Do rolls and somersaults when flying,
Stay tough and buff.
You can read her poem and the rest of the adventures, journals, postcards, and gold panning secret mapping in our new Alaska book. Buy a copy directly from the publisher, Island Heritage or from Amazon or other booksellers.
Contact me for a special edition Bookplate that might just feature autographs from Yuko, Alexus, me, and a raven or two. And don't forget to fly upside down for fun.
