Middle Grades

A deaf girl angry with having to wear a hearing aid and refusing to use signing meets a young mermaid thrust out of her community for disobeying their laws. Merfolk sign under the sea, so mergirl (who now has legs) and deaf girl can communicate. Together they rescue a beached dolphin, and

A boy, a girl, and an albino deer who one special night becomes a unicorn. Some twenty years after it was a hardcover, the book came out in paperback. It was a Golden Kite honor book. It is now under option for the movies.

This four-part fantasy novel reads like an expanded folk tale. There is a sea witch, a hero, a heroine, and a lot of magic. Patricia MacLachlan’s husband Bob claims that this is his favorite of my books. A Japanese edition came out in 1985, a Spanish edition in 1997.

A very silly chapter book about an adventurous mouse who rescues his own true love.

A bouncing adventure with a rhyming trucker, a hitchhiking toad, a motorcycle gang, and a young hero. The book began when there was a toad migration and friends had an uncomfortable time driving along the road squishing toads. They made up a song which I used with their permission.

A boy, a girl, a dog, an inept wizard, a nasty antiques dealer, a walking table, and a great white alligator. I set this in New York City’s Greenwich Village where my husband and I met and we lived for the first years of our marriage. It is a complete romp.

My first real mystery for kids, based on the little town–Conway, Massachusetts–where we then lived. There had been a rash of pet thefts and this was my take on it. Allan Eitzen who did the cover and some interior illustrations would later illustrate my poetry anthology