Working cover design for “The Shoebox”

This book has been completed and is now available for purchase through Barnes & Noble Press.

This is book has been written for Middle Grade Readers, but can be enjoyed by up to and including adult readers.Twelve to fourteen full-color illustrations accent Pearl’s work as a skillful Hat Maker and Entertainer while she teaches about The Great Gardener Son, as chickens call him, or simply Jesus, as people call him. She does this through His “I AM” Promises from The Gospel According to John.

The slide show below will advance on its own or you can use the left and right arrows.

Can you spot and name all 7 “I AM” Promise Hats that Pearl created?(Pearl arranged them in a pattern of 3 + 1 + 3 with others illustrations separating them with the middle one being most important.)

Working cover design for “The Shoebox”

This two-volume series serves as an introduction to Gracie and the World of Chickens.These books are good for those who are independent readers or those who enjoy a nice bedtime story. Loyalty to friends, dealing with loss, self-reliance, creativity, and use of gifts are highlighted.

Whether they are triumphing in The Worm Olympics Game or convincing everyone that chickens can do more than chickens have ever done before, Gracie and Bessie are inseparable.But when the other chickens begin to move away to new homes, Gracie and Bessie are left with only each other. Who will be next? What if they are separated? Can they find new friends?And what will they do when one of their new friends is a chicken named Pearl who is unlike any other chicken ever?

The Sewer Rat had been tormenting the chickens for days and days. He had become The Biggest Scary Thing for Gracie. Even though she has faced The Big Scary Thing and the Bigger Scary Thing, she is not sure what to do about The Biggest Scary Thing.But Gracie is the new leader of her flock, and she has to do something. She devises The Best Plan Ever that includes an ingenious invention called The Sewer Rat Eradicator. Will it prove that chickens are brave? Will it get rid of the Sewer Rat once and for all?

If you live outside the U.S., check your own country’s Amazon website.
Our books are likely to be there—and through other booksellers too!

Working cover design for “The Shoebox”

We are still working on a three-volume series titled The Dictionary of Curious Words. We are strongly considering rewriting this series from Pearl’s point-of-view since she is the last remaining chicken of the original flock of six.

A Brief Summary

After his grandmother dies, a socially awkward teenager begins to raise some baby chicks to deal with his grief and aloneness without knowing they were the key to revealing a world of mysteries right in his own backyard garden.

In Volume One, Gracie and the other chickens build an invention to thwart the plans of The Sewer Rat who works for Professor Accipiter’s who owns The Blue Moon Bird Circus and Sideshow Extravaganza but also wants to watch as The Absence of Love destroys their garden home which they love.

Amelia decides she must fly to the Moon to learn if she can be lost and not afraid, and to save her best friend Emily who has a most unusual gift: her drawings let her do things she could not do any other way—this includes guiding Amelia’s flights. Through a miscalculation, Amelia arrives in a little village named Moon, Virginia which is the home of Professor Accipiter’s Blue Moon Bird Circus.

We are still working on this book!

In Volume Three of, Amelia urges Emily to draw a gate which will allow all of the chickens to go to Paris, France so that Gracie can at last dance on the grandest stage in all of Paris and keep her promise to Nate. While there, they come across Professor Accipter again, and combining their special skills and talents with what Amelia has learned, they put an end to his plans and free The Garden they love from The Absence of Love.

Our featured book this season is titled A Most Wondrous Place. Each chapter is dedicated to a specific month of the year and features an illustration of Gracie and her friends. This makes a great chapter book for bedtime!

For more independent readers, we recommend Once Through a Garden Gate, a pair of books.

Our featured book this month is titled How to Explain Christmas to Chickens. Each chapter has it own illustration with a vintage color palette and bordered with assorted seasonal vintage gift wrapping paper.

After she loses her best friend, a little white hen named Pearl begins to explore her neighborhood with the hope of finding out what Christmas is all about. She discovers The Bottle Cap Lady’s house which has more lights and decorations than anyone else’s. Pearl discovers that only she can give a gift of light that can reach into the sad darkness of The Bottle Cap Lady’s heart.

If you live outside the U.S., check your own country’s Amazon website.
Our books are likely to be there—and through other booksellers too!

This working cover uses many natural elements and neutral colors. Our working title is still being debated by Gracie and the other chickens. For the working cover, Gracie feels most comfortable with the colors of eggs and straw.

This working cover fits better with the concept of these books being gathered from a group of notebooks discovered in a shoebox of an old house. It does have a different feeling that the one above. We are still undecided.

The books in this series are being written for anyone who is still a child at heart but prefers to read novels.This new series will expand on the stories already told while sharing more of the amazing adventures of Gracie who has a promise to keep and a destiny to fulfill.

The link below will let you visit the recently opened page for The Living Library.