Author of over 400 Books for Children and Adults
A short science fiction novel about a runaway boy who catches a ride with a van delivering hand-signing chimps to a California lab. A big earthquake destroys the road, tips over the van, kills the driver, and boy and chimp have to make their way through a devastated countryside to San Francisco.
This tall tale is based on some Stemple family history. My husband, David Stemple, was born and brought up inWest Virginia, up in the mountains, We had a number of family vacations there. He actually had an Uncle Lemon. David’s older brother Bill taught him to “fish for chickens.” FJ (for
I thought of this as a possible series and then never wrote a second book. About a group of girls (and one boy who is an honorary girl) who solve mysteries.
A folk tale chapter book set in an unnamed Arabic country where a slave boy helps to raise and train a flying horse. This was Barbara Berger’s first book. She had been one of my students at Centrum and I introduced her to Ann Beneduce who started her on her very illustrious career.
The first of the Pit Dragon trilogy, (second is Heart’s Blood, third is A Sending of Dragons) this science fiction novel takes place on another planet–Austar IV–where great dragons are fought in pits. This is the story of a young bond boy who buys his way out of servitude at a dragon nursery by
I began the COMMANDER TOAD books because I saw an article in the local newspaper about a boy and his frog who had just won a jumping-frog contest. The frog’s name was “Star Warts.” I thought it would be funnier if the frog had been a toad, since the old superstition is that toads gives you
This was originally (1976) a poem in Cricket about the many uses of hands. Years later (1991) it published by the educational publisher, Sundance in both a small and a Big Book paperback.
One day I was watching the “Ice Capades” with my children and some little brain tickle produced the title “The Mice Capades.” Of course there was no plot or characters–just the title. Gradually that became an easy reading story idea which grew and grew and grew until it was a small chapter book.
A collection of night-time poems, with lovely ink drawings by Demi, this book went out of print almost as soon as it was published because Methuen in the USA went out of business with that list. However, the book was published in England as well. And most of the poems have seen multiple
This sequel to “Spider Jane” is another little easy reading chapter book and was similarly lost. That is, it had nice reviews and few sales. I never quite knew why. It is about a house-proud spider and her friend, Bluebottle Burt who helps her keep her web clean. In this book, Spider Jane moves house.