Birdie's Book - Andrea Burden [49]
Hugs to my literary agent, Marcy Posner, who simply “took a chance” on an unknown writer and I think is glad she did. Thanks and blessings to my editor, Mallory Loehr, who was eight months pregnant with her little girl when she saw the value in the idea of the female lineages.
I want to thank my three sons, Shane, Evan, and Dustin, for their creative contributions of music, art, and Web design to the project. To Andrea Burden, who is a fairy queen in real life, I offer my deepest respect for her amazing artwork. I am forever in debt to my man spirit, Robert Skiles, who taught me to sing through a train wreck and write from the soul every day. Thanks to my helper fairies: John Salas (Don Quixote), Lurleen Ladd, and Jan Wieringa. I offer my most gracious thanks to Linda Lowery Keep, who invited me to journey to San Miguel Allende for guidance and writing.
I am so excited about my new book family at Random House Children’s, where a whole company supports the wisdom of wisdom and the beauty of giving voice to the inner life of girls.
And finally, I want to acknowledge all the girls I have met along the way who have read my stories or sung my songs from London to Toronto to Texas. You are the first class of the Fairy Godmother Academy, a very prestigious group of flames who will light up the world in the future. I do this for you. I hope you will share your own stories and songs with your children someday.
About the Author
Jan Bozarth was raised in an international family in Texas in the sixties, the daughter of a Cuban mother and a Welsh father. She danced in a ballet company at eleven, started a dream journal at thirteen, joined a surf club at sixteen, studied flower essences at eighteen, and went on to study music, art, and poetry in college. As a girl, she dreamed of a life that would weave these different interests together. Her dream came true when she grew up and had a big family and a music and writing career. Jan is now a grandmother and writes stories and songs for young people. She often works with her own grown-up children, who are musicians and artists in Austin, Texas. (Sometimes Jan is even the fairy godmother who encourages them to believe in their dreams!) Jan credits her own mother, Dora, with handing down her wisdom: Dream big and never give up.
Turn the page for an excerpt from Kerka’s Book!
Coming December 2009!
(Dear Reader, please note that the following excerpt may change for the actual printing of Kerka’s Book.)
Excerpt copyright © 2009 by FGA Media Inc. Published by Random House Books for Young Readers, an imprint of Random House Children’s Books, a division of Random House, Inc., New York.
From Kerka’s Book
The three mountains were still some distance away, and I had to crane my neck to see the peaks. The golden glow over the tops of the Three Queens shone brilliantly even in daylight. With no other clues to consider, instinct and logic told me to head toward the mountains.
A clickety-click sound grabbed my attention just as something grabbed my left boot. Startled, I looked down. A six-inch crablike creature had clamped on to my foot with a large claw. The crab’s eyes, which were attached to floppy three-inch stalks, stared back at me like those of a small alien. The other claw made a clicking noise as the creature repeatedly opened it and snapped it closed. My boot’s leather was thick enough to protect my toes from the crab’s pincers, but shaking my foot didn’t dislodge the little beast. I didn’t want to harm it, but I couldn’t continue my journey with a passenger dangling from my boot. I would have thought a creature made of glass would be a little more careful about who it grabbed!
“You’ve bitten off way more than you can chew, little guy.” I shook my finger at the creature as I scolded it. Then I blinked and smiled, inspired by my own words. “But I have something that’s much tastier than my boot.”
Being careful not to poke the water pods, I opened the food pack, broke off a small piece of what looked like a cake made of sunflower seeds, and carefully