Thank you for visiting! If you have already read The Kingdom of Strange, I'd love to hear from you. Click on the Contact Me link to drop me a line.
Reader, meet Thisbe: a Grade 9 student and an aspiring novelist. Her passions also include carbs, swimming and Fishbone, her cat.  Thisbe is dying to share her writing with someone, but who? Her parents are away and their home has been taken over by the eccentric Granny Ed and Chutney, her evil-smelling dog. Besides, both of her parents are academics and Thisbe wants to write books that people actually read...   When Thisbe's English teacher offers her the chance to take her writing online with students at another school, she jumps at the chance. The weeks that follow show Thisbe revelling in both her own creativity and a blossoming friendship. But there are surprises in store! When confronted with an unpleasant truth, she is forced to re-evaluate her ability as a writer and observer of humankind. In Granny Ed's company, and after some long swims and a few slices of medicinal cheesecake, Thisbe pulls herself back from the brink. With renewed humility and self-knowledge, she is able to acknowledge that you really can't believe everything you read - especially if you wrote it in the first place.   Video Preview In September 2010, I took part in the Raise-A-Reader program led by the Vancouver Sun. Here's a video of me reading from page 136 Book Download Or, why not download the first twenty five pages? The_Kingdom_of_Strange_INT.PDF  [123.97K]
My illustrations also appear in Best Friends Forever: A World War II Scrapbook (Marshall Cavendish, April 2010). Beverly Patt wrote this touching, funny and thought-provoking account of a friendship between two teenage girls, Dottie and Louise. When war is declared, Dottie and her Japanese-American family are interned in a former fairground in Puyallup, WA. As the war progresses, the two girls correspond and Louise keeps a chronicle of her best friend's absence in her scrapbook. Dottie's artwork illustrates the book, which also includes photographs, contemporary newspaper clippings and dog pawprints!.As always, Marshall Cavendish's design department has created a treasure that readers will want to keep with their own mementoes, in years to come. Best Friends Forever has already received a School Library Journal starred review. It was also chosen as a Spring 2010, Great Lakes, Great Reads pick.