Books for Children
I started my career as an author by getting involved with my local SCBWI (Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators) chapter and bouncing ideas off fellow writers. My first books are nonfiction for children, drawing on my love of earth science.
My curiosity about the earth began in a tiny valley in northwestern New Jersey -- West Milford, the town I grew up in. In the forests, purple rocks sparkled with white crystals, and I would split open little rocks atop my “table” of a glacially-deposited boulder in the backyard to look at the gleaming crystals inside. My hometown was an important center of iron mining in Colonial times, and just a valley to the west, in Franklin and Ogdensburg, zinc miners discovered dozens of unique species of fluorescent minerals, minerals that glow bright colors under ultraviolet light! When my family moved to Florida the rocks weren’t so cool, but sinkholes opened up under my high school and I figured I needed to know more about that phenomenon as well.
While Sinkholes was the first book I started to research, Earth’s Hidden Treasures was my first book published, and I filled it with all of the neat little tricks that a beginning “rockhound” would want to know. It was the first in the five-volume Exploring Planet Earth series, which can be found in schools and libraries around the country, and is now out of print. Each of the books focuses on a single facet of earth science and within it, the relationship between human history and the earth. Four of the five volumes are my former name. I've since resumed use of my maiden name for my books. Earth’s Fiery Fury
No, the earth doesn’t spew fire. It doesn’t burn. But magma seethes and bubbles deep within our planet, generating some pretty HOT STUFF! Volcanic activity creates new land. And volcanic [...]
Earth’s Wild Winds
We can’t see the wind, and yet we can hear it, feel it, smell it, and see its effects. From gentle breezes to furious attacks, the Earth’s winds are with [...]
Earth’s Hidden Treasures
From emeralds in Brazil to pegmatite in North Carolina, Earth’s Hidden Treasures shows how global forces on an enormous scale result in a dazzling, ever-changing array of gems and stones. [...]
Erosion: Shaping the Earth
In Erosion: Shaping the Earth, discover the how and why of erosive forces, and how human activity has contributed to a dangerous acceleration of erosion around the world. A drop [...]
Florida
Learn where monarch butterflies migrate through the state en route to Mexico; follow divers beneath the Atlantic Ocean to Florida’s coral reefs. For ages 5-10, Florida makes a fine introduction [...]
Florida in the Civil War
Colorful characters, desperate times—the Civil War unfolded in Florida much differently than in the sister states of the Confederacy, with skirmishes fought in salt marshes, the cavalry saddled up to [...]
Sinkholes
A sinkhole is a hole in the ground, but a very special one, appearing anywhere where rock dissolves, allowing the ground above it to sink. Some sinkholes happen gradually, but [...]
When the Earth Moves
Earthquakes can be disastrous, but the earth moves in many other ways as well—landslides, rockslides, mudflows, avalanches—sometimes with terrible results. When the Earth Moves explains how the earth is ever [...]