My middle son, Joey, was given a small, red canvas tent for his 5th birthday. However there had not been a gift label attached to the package. I never worked out who gave Joey the tent, and I was never able to send a thank you note. The mystery of this mysterious appearance is still a mystery! Nevertheless, the tent was named Travis and my children got to sleep in it on Fridays nights – taking with them soft toys, flashlights, snacks and juice pouches.

I always vowed to make sure that my children were read to from a young age, but because I had given birth to three of them in four years, bedtime routines had become somewhat lengthy! Necessity being the mother of all invention saw to it that I came up with a solution pretty quickly! I would write my own stories and read them out loud to my children together.

Travis was the mechanism that transported the children to a ‘Strange Land’. In each Strange Land something exciting, or unusual, or scary takes place. I gave my children a starring role in the stories, integrating their individual personalities, desires and weaknesses. My kids were enthralled, bedtime routines were less lengthy, and I was less of a basket-case.

My oldest son, Charlie, soon began to talk to his friends about his favorite stories at school. He quickly encouraged me to read them aloud in front of the rest of his kindergarten class – which I did, and soon Travis the Tent was the talk of the lunch room. When I heard a group of first-grade children in the playground talk about the stories and act them out – even though they themselves had never personally seen or read them – I realized that Travis had gone ‘underground’. I was thrilled, I kept the formula, kept on writing, and then one day, I published the entire picture book collection.

My daughter was three years old when I began writing my children’s story’s, and not only did she love being read to with her older brothers, her imagination was thoroughly piqued! I was totally surprised at the ease in which she came up with new story concepts, and the enthusiasm in her countenance when she explained them – brought the house down!