Give them an adventure to follow. The “Baby Grape and Huskey” book is the first of a series that offer adventures of teens in the 1845 era. The stories are a glimpse into the past and will show them what life was like during that time in a first hand manner.
Any reader that enjoys adventure will follow the page-turning episodes of the ‘crew’ as they escape one danger after another. So give them the gift of written stories, ’cause you might just want to read them yourself.
Notes from the Author: The Baby Grape book series, came to me when I was restoring an Antique Copper Still, that was made in the 1830’s. When one considers the face that that was very close to the time that George Washington was alive, it boggles one’s mind. I remade parts of the still and as I spent hundreds of hours doing it, I began to imagine what it was like to be alive, working in the shop that made this copper still. After much research, a story came to mind about a young man that became an apprentice and further thoughts brought me to think about the delivery of the products the shop made.
The more I researched the 1845 period, the more I became fascinated with the ‘frontier’ period of Pennsylvania, and the hardships it afforded. Thus came the story, and soon the characters developed (by themselves) which led me to the next step -blocking out the novel(s) that followed.
It became my hope that I could target the novel to teen readers to give them an idea of what life was like in that period. To my shame, I ‘wrote down’ to them, and didn’t consider how well read many of today’s teens are. But I hold to my first intent -to show them how time moves on, but the basics of life don’t change. In a younger mind, life is forever, and there is always enough time to do everything one desires. To the older reader, it becomes a reflection of life’s folly. We travel through it, and never once consider how life ‘leads’ us on. How one event carries us to another, until we have seen it from the other side, and we realize the foolishness of our own ambitions.
As I wrote the series, I used stories of people I have known, and the events of my own life to pass along the fair and unfairness of life’s events. Often, I have witnessed things that were completly unfair, and that was the basis of the stories I have presented. My own choice of a story is one that pits the average person into a series of events that they have no control over. They are simply left to devise their own demise! Long or slow, it doesn’t matter, because we all move through this life with the given skills we develop.
I hope you will take the time to consider a further look at my series of books, and visit my website, www.babygrapebooks.com
