Author of over 400 Books for Children and Adults
This mammoth collection was my first song book. Babbie Green is a good friend and professional musician. (Her father, Johnny Green was a Hollywood composer and arranger.) We had a ball working on this. I picked all the songs, found the written music or sung it into a tape recorder and
This book of mermen stories may have the longest and most difficult gestation of any book I have ever done. It began almost 30 years ago when my friend Shulamith Oppenheim and I wrote a proposal for a children’s book called
This is the second book that my three children and I have done for National Geographic, the first being ANIMAL STORIES.
NG asked us to do the first book, we pitched the second. I made a rough outline and once NG gave us a contract for the book, we divided up who would do which sections.
I have always loved Baba Yaga, the Russian witch with the iron nose who flies around the forest in a mortar and pestle. When my HarperCollins editor asked me to tell a Baba Yaga story
A graphic novel, first of two, about a New York City high school fencer who finds out she is the Last Defender of Faerie, illustrations by Mike Cavallero–see the book trailer!
This sequel was written pretty close to the time the first book came out, but publishers work in mysterious ways, and so it took (imho) far too long or book 1 to come out and I haven’t yet gotten the go-ahead for book 3, but live in hope. The book took some twists, I love the Baba Yaga character, and
A biography–warts and all–of the charismatic founder of the Society of Friends aka the Quakers. George Fox was a man who believed that God was within every human being, and such was his conviction, he managed to offend a good portion of the English clergy and the powers that be. He was
All books have a back story and this is a fun one. An editor I did not know (who has become a dear friend) asked me for her publisher (of a company I did not know then) if I could help edit/rewrite a picture book. They had gorgeous illustrations that told the story, but the illustrator’s writing skills were not up to his artwork. That sort of thing is always a stretch.And can be a spiderweb of good intentions that ends up killing everyone involved.
The 1970’s was a time of a great upsurge in children’s publishing, and everyone was trying easy readers. This little book–and its prequel THE GIANTS FARM–were both my entry into that particular genre. The five giants live on Fe-Fi-Fo-Farm which is what I wanted to call our farm when
This gentle little easy reading chapter book is one of my books that simply got lost. That is, it had nice reviews and few sales. I never understood why. The story is about a house-proud spider and her friend, Bluebottle Burt who helps her keep her web clean. There is a nosy, loud-mouthed bird, and as a bonus, a song at the end.