Dear Readers,

My computer has its nerve. It just said it would help me to write this letter. I tried to tell it to go jump in the lake and then I remembered what water does to computers. So I calmed myself and will ignore it and proceed.

I am writing this to update my WEBSITE. I have never looked up anyone’s WEBSITE so I have no idea what you are hoping for in this epistle. The story of my life? Try reading LITTLE BY LITTLE and STARS COME OUT WITHIN. I answered the most frequently asked questions about my life from age five to age fifty-five in those two books. Mind you, a lot has happened in my life since then. I am seventy-three now, so, I’ll put in a couple of catch up paragraphs.

At the end of my second autobiographical book, I had my first guide dog; a yellow Lab named Zephyr whom I got from The Seeing Eye in Morristown, New Jersey. I had my first talking computer and I was using WordStar. My mother was still alive and we lived together in a smallish house in Guelph. In 1991, Mother died of bone cancer, Zephyr retired and went to live with a loving family and I began trying out life on my own. I returned to Morristown and got my second Seeing Eye dog, a black Lab named Ritz. I also bought myself a Papillon puppy called Toby because my home felt so empty. A few months later, I bought Toby’s father, Panda, and the four of us did our best to carry on. Since my vision was minimal, this was a challenge. But I impressed myself by surviving the experiment.

In the meantime, my sister Pat had taken on the rearing of her baby granddaughter Jeanie. One day, I went to see a home in the country, which my niece Kyrie was renting. I loved it. A year later, Pat, Jeanie and her Scottie Tiggie moved east from Vancouver, and she and I, plus one, two year old girl and four dogs, moved into the old stone farmhouse. I put it into a book called WILLOW AND TWIG. When Jeanie was five, we discovered that her mother had had a baby boy. Soon the baby, named Ben, had joined our household. I loved living in the country. I could sing as I walked to the mailbox. We stayed there for eight joyful years.

Now we have moved back into the city. Jeanie is fourteen and Ben is nine. Toby, Panda and Ritz have died. We have four new dogs: Pippa, my Seeing Eye dog who is a yellow Lab, nine years old, Snug who is Ben’s pug dog, Emily who is a Pekingese belonging to Pat and Cassie who is my Pekingese. Cassie just turned one year old. We also have two cats, Frank and Spook and two African Grey Parrots called Henry Higgins and Jazz. Ben has two turtles whose names I can never remember because he changes them. It is a chaotic place, our big, pink house, but always lively and interesting. And, believe it or not, I keep writing up a storm in the midst of all the chaos.

In the last few years, I have had several books published. They are Dear Canada: ORPHAN AT MY DOOR, Dear Canada: BROTHERS FAR FROM HOME and PIPPIN THE CHRISTMAS PIG published by Scholastic; EMMA’S STRANGE PET published by Harper; BIRDIE FOR NOW and I GAVE MY MOM A CASTLE published by Orca Books. I am proud of every one of them. They are very different from each other. Check them out and you will see.

I have a skinny novel for younger kids called THE BIRTHDAY GIRL, which came out last spring. I also have a new novel called SOMEBODY ELSE’S SUMMER coming out in August. FORWARD, SHAKESPEARE! the sequel to RESCUE PUP, is coming out in fall 2005. You should read the two books together. I have almost finished work on my third book in the Dear Canada series. It is about the outbreak of Spanish Flu which attacked Canada in fall, 1918. We have not yet settled on the title but the main character is a girl called Fiona, nicknamed Fee. Three of my earlier titles are being reissued this summer in new editions. PIPPIN THE CHRISTMAS PIG is now out in German, French, Spanish and Korean. I am excited about this because it is my first book to be published there. It is a long journey for a runty Ontario pig.

I hope you love them all. I am working hard because I have a complicated family to support! You KEEP READING A LITTLE and you will see. Always remember that the best place for your nose is inside a book.