Fellow writers and readers,

My first book, Once Upon a Sandbox, centred on growing up in rural Oxford County in Ontario. It contained stories about my family, about our farm, about community and how they work together. It’s a combination of prose and poetry. When I had it published, I had no idea what would be next, other than poetry and devotionals published in various places. And I did not think at the time of entering the picture book market in any form.

Life changes the way we look at things, not on our values, but on how we act on them. I didn’t know then that after my father died, that I would think about his values and his passions and how to relay them to his great grandchildren, most of who did not get to know him or had the time to spend with him. Many of them were born afterwards, but their parents sure remembered.

The thought came on the day of Dad’s  funeral when I saw all the little ones present, then in the days afterwards, the story began to take shape. The question in my mind: How will they know unless we tell them?

It was many months before that story was polished enough to share. During those months, I had a conversation with artist/illustrator, Maja Wizor, about the concept. When she saw the story, she said, “It needs full page spreads.” I was glad for her skills, for she painted wonderful art to go with my text and she was able to put the words on the page and set it up as a template for the printer.

That first picture book was ready for our first Christmas that Dad, Grandpa and Great Grandpa wouldn’t be with us. Families had ordered their copies and that day picked up their order. On a day that might otherwise just be sad, we had something new to celebrate, in his honour. Not only were the great grandchildren glad to have a new book, but also the grandchildren, who knew their grandfather well, and my sisters and brother were delighted as well.

The following spring I took my first efforts to Angel Hope Publishing to make a general market version. The story and the art remained the same. Only the packaging changed. The back cover photo, of Dad with his dog, got moved to the inside of the back cover as a dedication and purpose for writing the book. And the back cover resembled any picture book on the market with author and illustrator shown and a teaser of what the book contains.

Maja and me on the back cover

By September of that year, 2017, articles had appeared in Oxford County news and Ontario Farmer, thanks to journalist Helen Lammers-Helps, who I’d had occasion to meet at an author event several months before. I was grateful for her interest and her editor’s interest in the book and delighted when people I’d never met came to the Fall Fair to get a copy of the book.

I’ve been delighted to have my illustrator, Maja, along with me at various promotions for Harry’s Trees and Les arbres de Harry.

Ontario Farmer publication

I could never have imagined all this to come about because of that story I wanted to share with small members of our family.

After much consideration over the next months, I hired Chantal Trudel Laudano, of Kitchener ON, to translate my story into French. We have a lot of French immersion programs in our schools in our community, and we are Canadian with French as a second language. I was grateful as well to be invited to show my books at the Christmas party of L’Association des francophones de K-W and their summer Franco Fete in 2019. Thanks to Suzanne Dansereau for that introduction.

I still have family copies for little ones coming into our extended family, and the other two versions are still selling.

Now with my next picture book, Sophie and the Giant Boy, the story is as different as the reason for writing it, but that’s a new post. And again, I am grateful to Glynis and Amanda at Angel Hope Publishing for their wise counsel and artistic efforts to bring a picture book to “birth.”

To learn more about my books and editing, see www.carolynwilker.ca

Book cover photos provided by publishers. All other photos © C Wilker.