The Spider Drama
In The Spider Drama, twins Cassie and Anna enter a myth involving Athena and Arachne! The story involves drama club, knitting, and a net climber.
When I was writing this story, the illustrator, Benedetta Capriotti, asked if the mushroom sandwich code that Cassie texts Anna could be a grape jelly sandwich code instead! I’m so glad that she did. The grape jelly sandwich matches all the purples in the book and looks great on the cover. Plus, my real life twins like jelly more than they like mushrooms.
Pomegranate Passion Cake
Pomegranate Passion Cake was the first book I wrote for this series! Ben goes to Hades and makes his way out based on his awesome baking skills. For this story, I thought about how sometimes parents don’t see how cool their kids’ interests are. Sometimes they make them feel bad about what they really love to do!
Ben is named after my good friend, Ben Baker. My friend Ben is a French professor, but I wondered what would happen if I wrote a story where someone named Ben was a baker.
The Amazing Catapult
The Amazing Catapult features a single mom, like me, and a girl who knows a lot about physics and popcorn. When I was a kid, I had a huge interest in robotics, but STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics), especially STEM for girls, wasn’t really a thing, so I spent a lot of time dreaming about creating robots without any idea how to do it. As a kid, I also had a strong interest in learning how popcorn worked; I only figured that out recently!
I wanted Isabelle, the main character in this book, to use her love of physics to help out some mythological creatures as well as help out her mom. Isabelle enters the myth of Icarus and helps him get out of the Minotaur’s maze safely, and she helps her mom figure out a big popcorn problem.
Pandora’s Phone
In this book, Harvey helps out Hephaestus, a disabled god in Greek mythology! He also helps make Mt. Olympus Theme park have lots of wheelchair-accessible rides, not just one!
For this story, I asked my good friend (and #1 board game champion!) Betsy if her husband could give me some advice. Like Harvey in this story, he is a wheelchair user. One of my favorite pieces of advice he gave me is how Harvey and his brother Rob would get to the bus to Mt. Olympus Theme Park. He said they would probably “walk and roll” to the bus station.
Since these books take place in New Jersey, Harvey and Rob likely take NJ Transit to get to Mt. Olympus Theme park!
Medusa’s Mirror
Evelyn, the main character of this book, goes to Mt. Olympus Theme Park with her Aunt Tricia after winning a hairdo contest! Evelyn helps Medusa, a character from Greek Mythology, not to get killed by Perseus.
I have an Aunt Tricia who is a sculptor like the Aunt Tricia in this book. She always encouraged my creativity as a kid, and now she spends a lot of time with my kids, encouraging their creativity (and still encouraging me too)!
This book is dedicated to my best friend, Darla; her wife Betsy; and their kid, Max! Darla is an amazing author!
When I wrote this book, Max went by a different name, so you can feel free to cross that name out and write “Max” in the dedication page of your book. That way, your book will be more up to date!
The Hunting House
Growing up, I always enjoyed crabbing with my grandfather, and while I have never hunted in the woods, my good friend and colleague Kate grew up in a family of hunters, and I am fascinated by hunting. I also really like Kate’s dad’s deer baloney! It’s delicious.
The Hunting House is about how a kid named Miles, who loves hunting more than poetry, finds a use for sonnets; he uses them to change a Greek myth!
I can really relate to Miles’s struggles in school. I always got very low grades in math, and I thought I’d never use math as an adult. The truth is, I do use math in my life, especially percentages, since I am now a teacher! I wish I had paid better attention to those lessons in school and gotten better learning support in math.
In life there are a lot of myths. The more we learn, the more able we can be to change the myths that do not make us happy.
STEAM Jobs in Architecture and Construction
I was so excited to write this book! During college and after, as part of my Art History degrees, I learned a lot about architecture. I wish there had been career guides for all kind of jobs when I was younger!
My favorite part of this project was researching Lego House in Denmark. The building looks like Lego bricks!
