A letter from the author

Dear reader,

Long before Fern Meadow had a name, there was a little girl making up stories. One of my earliest memories is sitting with my younger brother, pretending I knew how to read a picture book and inventing the story as I went.

Childhood became complicated very quickly after that. I lost my brother when I was very young, and I had to grow up much sooner than a child should.

Then, just before I turned ten, I met the woman who would become my mom. She read to me in bed: Anne of Green Gables, and a beautifully illustrated book of Greek mythology I asked for again and again. She encouraged me to play, make believe, and imagine worlds beyond my own. She taught me how to be a child again, and that I hadn’t become too old for wonder.

Fern Meadow is my way of passing that gift on: a world where curiosity is encouraged, differences are celebrated, and nobody is in a hurry for a child to grow up.