This book, about two feral children found in India in the 1920s and brought to an orphanage, is the second in a series of real-life unsolved mysteries for kids which I have written with my daughter Heidi Stemple. The first,
Hobo Toad and the Motorcycle Gang
A bouncing adventure with a rhyming trucker, a hitchhiking toad, a motorcycle gang, and a young hero. The book began when there was a toad migration and friends had an uncomfortable time driving along the road squishing toads. They made up a song which I used with their permission.
Honkers
Pat Gauch at Philomel wanted me to write a follow-up book for John Schoenherr after our success with OWL MOON. I wrote this book in the first person hoping it had the same tone. Perspicacious readers will note that the book is not illustrated by Schoenherr (he was already at work on a goose book)
Hoptoad
HOPTOAD is one of the shortest picture books (if not the shortest) I have ever written.But the pictures by Karen Schmidt give it a longer story. The piece began as a silly rhyme which I thought might be a board book, but my editor had broader (wider?) thoughts and so it became a picture book.
Horizons
I love working with my son Jason on books. His photos are so strong, so powerful, that their very existence pushes me to write poems to match them. When we were completing COLOR ME A RHYME, and my husband and I were
House, House
We live in a small New England town in western Massachusetts. When we moved in, the Town Clerk gave us an old black and white photo of our house from the 1910s. It was by the Howes Brothers, turn of the century
How Beastly!
This is a book of nonsense poems, about made up animals. Like the Shirk–a lazy shark. Or the Dinosore whose pounding poundage makes him weak. I wrote many of these on walks by the Connecticut River, telling the poems into my little tape recorder. As I am an incorrigible punster, I had a ball
How Do Dinosaurs Choose Their Pets
I think this is the funniest of the Dino-Sty books, because the basic premise is so absurd as Dinos bring home tigers, etc from the zoo. And Mark Teague has gone all wild and crazy with the art.
How Do Dinosaurs Clean Their Rooms?
My editor thought that two very young board books about the Yolen/Teague dinosaurs might be a great idea. She suggested a counting rhyme for one of them. I came up with the Clean Their Rooms
How Do Dinosaurs Count to Ten?
My editor thought that two very young board books about the Yolen/Teague dinosaurs might be a great idea. She suggested a counting rhyme for one of them. I came up with the Clean Their Rooms idea