When I was a kid, our little family spent summers living in rickety cabins alongside other field workers and picking everything from strawberries to cucumbers. What I remember most was early mornings during raspberry-picking season … the rows and rows of thick bushes, wet with dew, draped with spider webs and, yes, spiders.

Raspberry bushes fascinate me to this day. Spiders, not so much. The bushes, however, are the perfect example of resilience. Each winter, they regress to sticks. Barren. Seemingly useless. It you didn’t know better, you would give up on them. But they’re just resting and doing what we all need to do once in a while, which is taking time to replenish so they can bear fruit.

This spring, whether you’ve ever seen a raspberry bush or not, be the spider. And, when it’s your season, find your waterspout and climb!

April is National Poetry Month. It’s also the one-year anniversary of the release of my first poetry book, “Full of Beans.” I’d like to say that I planned it that way … aligning National Poetry Month with the debut of that first poetry book, but, nope, that was a big fat coincidence! However, it’s not a coincidence that “Full of Baloney” was just released … one year after “Full of Beans” and, yes, in time for National Poetry Month.

This book is a little different than my others, in that it is geared toward ages 5-10 years. It’s 48 pages of happy! Just a few of the titles:

Pea’s Podcast
Moose in Her Hair
The Great Freckle Fiasco
Mission L.O.L.
Hot Potato, Couch Potato, Spud
and, of course, “Full of Baloney”

After some intense and detailed artwork for my last two books, it was simply joyful to sketch out the quirky drawings for this book.

Part of me thinks I shouldn’t even say what’s next! My “plans” seem to change. My anticipated “next “isn’t always what really ends up being next!

I mentioned before that "Elliott, the Mouse, and the Good Deed” would be “next.” I wrote the story and I love the story. I started the art and I love the look. But Ella (remember her? From the “Ella’s Little Light” book?) has a problem. So, I’m helping her out and introducing Elliott in her second story, “Ella’s BIG Problem.” Ya gotta do what ya gotta do, right? From there, I envision Ella and Elliott being best buds and maybe her tagging along in the good deed story, but, hey, what do I know?