This is me, looking angelic.

While I may have been angelic in my heart, I didn't always act that way. After all, I had curly red hair and was the middle child of five.

When you have red hair, people expect you to be stubborn and have a hot temper. Far be it for me to disappoint them.

As the middle child, I had my hands full.

When middle children aren't feeling neglected (because they aren't the oldest and they aren't the baby), they're trying to solve everyone's problems. With brothers and sisters like mine, I was surrounded by problems.

Me, Shep, Flip, and Matthew (he's the one in the silly cap.) Lucia must have been taking a nap.

We were a wild bunch. We made rafts and swam and fished in the river behind our house, climbed trees, rode bikes, built forts, sledded down the hill in our side yard, put on plays ... we were never still for long. When we did stop moving, we read, because we weren't allowed to watch TV during the week - GASP! - and there were no computers or video games - DOUBLE GASP!!

Now. Here's a secret I want to share with you: The best way to become a good writer is to read. The more you read, the more you learn how to build sentences and create characters and what a good plot is. And because you're having fun reading, it's a painless kind of learning.

Perfect, no?

I grew up ... went to college ... worked as a newspaper reporter and an advertising copywriter ... got married ... lived and worked in South Africa and Hong Kong ... and then, my son, Oliver, was born. That's when I became a children's book author.

When you have been a reader all your life, and you live with a little boy who thinks kissing frogs and letting lizards crawl on your bed is perfectly normal, you have plenty of fodder for children's books. I spied on Oliver and his friends all the time. In fact, when Oliver re-read the Owen Foote chapter books one summer while he was in college, he said indignantly, "You've been spying on me my entire life!"

He was right.

I'm still spying on people. If I didn't, where would I get my material? So if you and I ever have the pleasure of meeting, you might want to mind your p's & q's, as my mother used to say ... chances are, I'm keeping my eye out for material for a new book.