I am a children's author living in Salt Lake City, Utah. I was born in Fairhope, Alabama, but spent most of my childhood in Japan. My books, HOW TO BABYSIT A GRANDPA and HOW TO BABYSIT A GRANDMA and HOW TO CATCH SANTA are NYTimes and Indie bestsellers. This series expanded to eleven picture books and six early readers books. TURBO’S SPECIAL DELIVERY (Clarion Books) starts a new series featuring a truck named Turbo!
Peter and I have lived in Salt Lake City, Utah for over 40 years. We started our family in 1986 when we adopted a baby boy, John. Two years later we adopted a baby girl, Jane. They shared a happy childhood. We camped, hiked, boated, but our favorite thing to do was to read stacks and stacks of library books together. Since the summer of 2000, my husband and I have served as seasonal backcountry volunteers in Grand Teton National Park.
I started writing for children in 2003. My first book, ALWAYS MY BROTHER, (2009, Tilbury House Publishers) is a story that mirrors a family tragedy that struck us. On November 3, 2005, after a challenging year, our son John died of a drug overdose at the age of nineteen. Our family has struggled to cope with his death, even as we try to honor and cherish his memory.
HOW TO BABYSIT A GRANDPA, (2012, Knopf Books for Young Readers) is a humorous picture book about a little boy and his grandpa. Its companion book, HOW TO BABYSIT A GRANDMA, (2014), is a sleepover story about a grandmother and her granddaughter. Both these books made the NYTimes and Indie bestseller lists.
These two books have become the start of a HOW-TO "series." HOW TO SURPRISE A DAD and HOW TO CATCH SANTA published in 2015.
In 2017, HOW TO RAISE A MOM and HOW TO GET YOUR TEACHER READY were published. A "spooky" Halloween book, HOW TO SCARE A GHOST, joined the series in 2018 and HOW TO READ TO A GRANDMA OR GRANDPA in 2020. HOW TO WELCOME A NEW BABY and HOW TO BABYSIT YOUR GROWNUP are also now available. Recently, six Step-into-Reading early reader books have been published as well. HOW TO LOVE A GRANDMA’s publication date is November 28, 2023.
Besides these How-to books, TURBO’S SPECIAL DELIVERY, starring a truck named Turbo, published with Clarion Books in 2023. I am hoping this becomes a series also, because I have many adventures in mind for Turbo!
I have also written stories for Highlights Magazine and Boys' Quest.
Jamie Weiss Chilton of the Andrea Brown Literary Agency represents me.
