Project Management Professional
Writer, Designer & Community Leader
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| Summary of Children's Book Stories |
Eve's Oak |
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Eve's "best friend" is Greenbeard, an ancient Live Oak who lives on the hill behind her house. One hot summer day, after accidentally swallowing a tiny acorn dropped by a mysterious owl, Eve dreams that she has entered Greenbeard's world.! She lives the long and many-splendored life of an oak, and awakens to a wonderful surprise. |
The second full moon of summer rose, and poured cool air down the slope. It swirled around her legs, while her head and arms still basked in the August heat. One October morning, all the houses were gone! Her surprise disappeared when she saw the blanket of fog stretching from her knees out across the valley. Meadowlarks sang their songs; Eve knew the words. Winter brought storm after storm after storm, torrents of clouds racing down from the crest of the hill, whipping her arms, soaking the earth around her feet. Not far away, the land was sliding, leaving wet, rust-red gashes in the green. Eve gripped her earth tight with each of her thousand toes. |
"Once upon a time there was a land where nobody smiled." In this original folk tale, the reader discovers two neighboring kingdom's beset with perpetual sadness and strife. Can the people be renunited by an ordinary baby with an irresistable smile? Will the rival kings go to war to posess the baby's magic?
Shadows were long when the armies reached Middlewood, a vast meadow on the border of the East and West Kingdoms. A storm cloud was spreading into the corners of the sky, and when it reached the sun, all the shadows faded into one. The two Kings led their their horses to the center of the meadow to parley. "That child belongs in the East," said the East King, pointing his sword at the baby. "She has brought you your riches," answered his brother. "Now, by the spears and arrows of the West, she shall be mine!" The Kings and their escorts began to shout at each other, then they raised their weapons. The armies roared and charged across the meadow, meeting like two waves at the middle. At that moment, a blinding flash and deafening crash filled the air. A tree at the edge of the meadow exploded into flames. Every man froze. Thunder echoed, rumbling slowly across the forest. When its voice was lost to absolute silence, a new sound began. The baby began to cry. |
The Cathedral tells of how twelve-year-old Louis responds to the impending collapse of the beloved old cathedral in his Medieval village. His desperate flight from town leads him to a magnificent grove of trees which, if cut, could save his cathedral. Louis struggles to find a way to ensure both cathedrals will live to enrich the lives of another dozen generations of villagers.
"Louis, the cathedral was built 500 years ago," sighed the white-haired caretaker. "Then, the storytellers say, the lands about us were full of great trees. Today we have farms and pastures, but the trees...they are gone, all gone." "Well, there is a legend about The Tall Trees of the Lost Valley..." For a moment, Louis noticed, Emil's eyes seemed to sparkle as he watched the day's last light dance across a stained glass window. Then Emil turned his gaze to the floor. "But no one has ever believed it." Louis sat still on the altar step. Through the deep silence, the clock in Emil's shop chimed the hour. |
Billy and his little brother Tim must cope with their fun-avoiding workaholic dad. Through the telling of an imaginative bedtime story, where two giants play with a grown-up "busyness man" as if he were a child, the boys unwittingly help their father rediscover the joy of playing with his children.
"Jackson was scared. He had never even seen a giant before, and now he was going to mow the lawn riding on a giant's shoulders. But what could he do?" Tim sat straight up and said, "He better not argue with a giant. He better do what Big Jo tells him!" "Right!" said Billy. "So Jackson and Big Jo mowed the lawn. Jackson used Big Jo's head as a steering wheel. They cut a wiggly path through the grass that looked like a humungous snake." "Like green spaghetti!" Tim exclaimed. "Then Jackson got down, and Big Jo led him into the garage. Jackson was starting to have fun, so he wasn't afraid anymore. Big Jo and Jackson came out of the garage with Jackson's mountain bike. "'We're going to the mountains', Big Jo said." |
Little Fox Crosses the River (680 words)
In this modern fable, a little fox wants to cross the river, to visit a hillside "bathed in sun and dressed in flowers." But every animal she asks for advice gives her the same answer: "my way is the one and only way." In the end Little Fox solves this riddle, and learns important lessons about both diversity and self-centeredness.
A duck waddled up. Little Fox asked, “Do you know how I can cross the river?” “Yes, indeed!” harrumphed the duck. There is only ONE WAY. You must SIT on the water and kick your feet. Of course, you MUST have feathers!” “I have fur,” said Little Fox timidly. “That won’t work,” snapped the duck. “You do it MY WAY, or you’re stuck. Too bad you will never be a duck!” The duck plopped into the river and paddled away, quacking indignantly, tail feathers held high. |
Take thiis poetic journey on "the water highway" to places where water lives, from sweet apples and salty marshes to glaciers, waterfalls and thunderclouds. Touch the River brings the reader to a deeper understanding of the water cycles, and to their own connection to life on earth.
Your touch runs upstream, leaping cataracts with steelhead and salmon, into brook and creek, and alpine lake, and reservoir. You touch the streams that flow through pipes down from mountains, into showers, swimming pools, and drinking fountains, and sprinklers shooting water sinking into the earth of the farmers' fields. You touch the invisible ocean: water moving slowly, silent, underground. Feel the roots of ten trillion plants growing all around the green world. Reach into the coconut's milk, the lupine's nectar, sweet delicious apple juice. Your touch drifts downstream, lazily wends round river bends, through swamps and salt marshes. It finds the long legs of an egret standing tall above the tiny shining fish. You touch them one and all. |