life's small pleasures & My Darlin' Clementine

My husband and I have a saying when we're feeling discouraged by world headlines, or I'm bummed by another rejection, or we're missing our sons: "Okay, let's find an LSP!" -- Life's Small Pleasure. We're not as flowery as Anne Shirley of Green Gables, but seriously sometimes all it takes to feel better about life is to get outside and hear birds singing--or take a picnic to a soccer match and watch a friend's son play his heart out.

It was 91 degrees yesterday in Boise, Idaho. Parents were cheering from the sidelines, the boys ran the field in the happy clustering I remember from our sons' games. One of the kids wore bright yellow shoes--which I thought showed guts and creativity--and Nathan scored a goal. The LSPs were adding up.

But what a surprise when my friend's daughter, Katie, showed me a copy of  My Darlin' Clementine. She explained she was reading it for her 5th Grade class in Bellevue, and even had some questions for the author. I'm stoked this book about Idaho history is being used in schools. LSP times ten!

So it was a beautiful Saturday. We went home to our goldens who shook themselves from their nap to greet us. While my husband was cooking dinner, we enjoyed the best LSP: a phone call from Seattle where our sons and their sweethearts were about to watch the sunset. Sunset as in sunshine, a bonus for that rainy city. We smiled about their afternoon together, especially when one of them posted a terrific photo on Facebook.



PHOTO above: on the soccer field with Jessie [L] and Katie, holding Clementine.

pets as characters: how Cleopatra got her leopard

with my leopards Poppy & Daisy

Kids often write me about their pets, listing their names and mischief, and they ask about mine. I didn't realize how much animals mean to some children until these words from an 11-year-old reader: He described his dog as his "very best friend in the whole world" and how every night they slept in the same bed. At the end of his letter the boy wrote that his mother used to be his best friend, but a few months earlier she had died of cancer.

My heart was wrenched. Ever since, I've made a point of having a dog or two, and often a cat, in my stories. So no matter what might happen to a character, good or bad, a devoted pet will be there to comfort the reader. Unless writing of a historical event, I won't let any animals die. All dogs and kitties live happily ever after, birds too!


When I was researching Cleopatra I thought, hmm, what kid wouldn't love to have a big cuddly purring leopard for a friend. So I gave her one! You can see Arrow with its jeweled collar on the cover [ABOVE left] of The Royal Diaries - Cleopatra VII, Daughter of the Nile, Egypt, 57 B.C. I love how artist Tim O'Brien painted a golden-retriever size cat standing beside the Egyptian princess, both so regal. He nailed it.

My goldies, Poppy and Daisy, are as tall as Arrow when they're dragging me to the park but most of the time they just lie around [PHOTO ABOVE right]. They are our family's loyal and cherished best friends.

little boys playing in a lake & the idea for "Jenny of the Tetons"

Jenny Lake, Wyoming

Grand Teton National Park was supposed to be a three-hour drive from our home in Pocatello, Idaho, but with two toddlers in the backseat it took twice that long ... diaper-changes, someone was thirsty, a moose was spotted. Finally, before too many squabbles, we reached a beautiful picnic beach at Jenny Lake [PHOTO, left]. I marveled that such a pristine spot was named after a woman and asked at the visitor's center about her identity.


A ranger explained Jenny had been a Shoshone Indian married to an English fur trapper named Beaver Dick Leigh during the 1870s. Not only is the neighboring Leigh Lake named after him, he kept a journal of their life together with their children. My imagination went wild. What was it like hiking with five kids in the wilderness while being pregnant? Living in a tipi during blizzards? While our boys threw stones in the lake and splashed each other, I wondered if Jenny was another mother lost to history or was there a story to be told?

I'd been a newspaper reporter and book reviewer, but had never written a novel. Didn't know how or where to start! In the gift shop I bought maps, nature guides, and historical accounts about the tribes, then hauled everything to the car with the usual plunder of candy and T-shirts. On the long drive back to Pocatello, ideas percolated. By the time the boys were down for "naps" [ha! that's a joke] I was on the phone with the archivist at the University of Wyoming. I asked how I might read Beaver Dick's diaries and said I was writing a book called Jenny of the Tetons, a title that just that instant popped into my head.

A few days later, the mailman delivered a hefty package. Inside were xeroxes of Dick's letters and journals with a note from the archivist: "$10.40 please." Wow! I spread out the maps on the kitchen table and began tracing every canyon, creek and river mentioned in the diaries. Soon I had a picture of Jenny's life with her mountain man and began to write, opening each chapter with his words. His spelling was atrocious which I kept intact to show kids that you don't have to be perfect to tell a story.

Jenny of the Tetons (Great Episodes)took nine months to write and research. I visited the Shoshone-Bannock reservation where elder Emma Dann demonstrated how to raise a tipi and what Jenny would have used as diapers: the soft pulpy bark from sagebrush! I interviewed Maude Miner, one of the first white babies born in Idaho Territory, and who had met Beaver Dick as a child. When I asked what he was like, she said that during his visits her mother would have to open all the windows: "Sometimes he was clean, sometimes he wa'rnt," she explained.

After a discouraging string of rejections, Harcourt Brace Jovanovich published Jenny in 1989. Then to my utter amazement The Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators [SCBWI] gave it the Golden Kite Award for fiction. It was a grand beginning!

orthodontist's waiting room & the story behind "Earthquake at Dawn"

Having braces at age 40 was a bummer, but Dr. Neufeld's waiting room made all those months worthwhile: he had great magazines! People, US Weekly, and home improvement stuff. One morning before my appointment, I became engrossed in a National Geographic article about the San Francisco earthquake of 1906. One of the black-and-white photos mesmerized me.

It showed a team of beautiful horses that had been killed by falling bricks, their wagon covered in debris. I'd grown up in California, but earthquake reports had always been sanitized, meaning children and animals didn't die. Certainly not pretty horses delivering milk for breakfast. Another photo was of 22-year old Edith Irvine, whose camera captured this and other powerful images from that terrible morning of April 18th.

The magazine also printed --for the first time -- excerpts from a 33-page letter written by another young woman who survived the earthquake, Mary Exa Campbell. She described looters being shot, the fires, and babies being born in the park, including triplets. By the time I was reclined in the dental chair, a story was whizzing through my brain. At home, I called National Geographic. They gave me phone numbers of Edith's nephew, Jim Irvine, and Mary Exa's relatives who graciously sent me her letter and a 1st person account by Jack London.

I was delirious with story-itis -- can that be a word? -- and couldn't wait to call my editor at Harcourt, Karen Grove. A tale to tell is the most exciting moment for a writer, especially with true-life characters and original source documents; yikes, it was fun. Jim Irvine drove to my house in Redlands, with old photos and letters -- in the 1800s his family had owned the great sheep ranch which eventually became one of the largest cities in California: Irvine.

The original cover of Earthquake at Dawn (Great Episodes)shows Edith Irvine with the horses in the background [ABOVE], and several of her photos are inside the book. I was thrilled when the Commonwealth Club of California honored it with the Silver Award for Juvenile Fiction in 1992.

a scary old house & the haunting of hillside school

The old house was just uphill from the ocean in Manhattan Beach. As kids, we'd pass it on our walks to Becker's Bakery where we loaded up on sugar cookies, two for a nickel, then would run out to the end of the pier and back. On our way home we'd stop in front of the house. The place was scary: weeds in the sidewalk, windows boarded up. We dared each other to peek through the cracks. Once we heard a frightful moan and saw a figure creeping around inside, or at least we thought we did, so we raced away screaming.

The idea of an old mansion where strange things happen stayed with me through the years and inspired The Haunting of Hillside School. It's #4 in the Cabin Creek series where the cousins try to solve the mysterious music and a face at the window. My editor Kristin Earhart picked the name Hillside School, and it turns out practically every town in America has one by that name. 

[PHOTO ABOVE]: In 1963 I convinced my friends Chris and Martha to pose by the broken door so I could take their picture. We were in 7th grade. The image is too small to see our little paper bags from Becker's Bakery.

a real mystery in our living room & the secret of the junkyard shadow

One December night long ago, my little brother and I woke to a clunk and clanging. We lived at the beach and from our open bedroom window could hear the familiar sounds of the surf and foghorn, but this noise was new. Maybe Santa had come early! It was almost Christmas. Our parents were asleep, apparently not aware of the commotion. We crept out to the living room to investigate, leaving our sister safe in her crib.

Santa had been there! But instead of toys he had left behind a bunch of black boxes in various shapes. We opened the lids, astonished to find a shiny musical instrument in each box, nestled in blue velvet. There was a trumpet, a trombone, flute, clarinet, and a saxophone. We bumped into some brass cymbals, which finally roused the household.

I don't remember my parents' reaction except that they called the police. After all, a stranger had broken into our home!

This curious event from my childhood inspired The Secret of the Junkyard Shadow. In this Cabin Creek adventure, folks are perplexed about broken items showing up on their porches in good repair. It takes much sleuthing for the cousins to solve this mystery, but a lot of nice things happen along the way.

Back to our living room. It turned out that a musician from a beach club had volunteered to deliver all the instruments to a friend's home. It was late and dark and he was on the wrong street. So when he found the house with the porch light on and the front door unlocked, he figured he'd found the right place. 

p.s. I've been accused of stretching the truth to have fun with a story, but not here. Yesterday I verified this one with my mom while we were drinking coffee and playing Bananagrams. You can ask her :)

our 1st indepence day, philadelphia 1776

On a hot and humid July 4th, 1776, a horseman brought worrisome news to Philadelphia: ships carrying 10,000 British soldiers had landed in New York. Redcoats were now camped on Staten Island, just one day's ride by horseback. Meanwhile, a printer named John Dunlap worked through the night making copies of the Americans' letter to King George III, their declaration of independence from England.

In Five Smooth Stones: Hope's Revolutionary War Diary,  nine-year-old Hope and her mother sit in their garden, in the shade of their tall brick house. They read this letter to each other, which calls King George cruel and unfit to be the ruler of a free people. "Our country has a new name," Hope writes in her diary, "the United States of America. No longer will we call ourselves an English colony."

It took days for this news to reach every farm and village, but soon patriots were ringing bells from all the church steeples. They were reading the Declaration of Independence to one another, from courthouse steps and from the saddles of express riders stopping along dirt roads. With the exception of Loyalists, Americans were jubilant. They blasted cannons and tore down the royal flags of England, setting them on fire, and destroyed statues of King George. Blacksmiths carted away the chunks of iron to melt down for bullets to use against the enemy: This war for independence would continue until 1781.

Hope memorizes the words treasured by so many of us: "We hold these truths to be self-evident. All men are created equal. Their Creator gives them certain rights. Among these rights are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness."      Happy Independence Day, everyone!!