At the Tree Farm! This is a really special day for Belinda. Her dad and Gramps remember shopping for trees when the ground was muddy and the air was cold, but Belinda is lucky. Today is perfect in every way. Here's a hint - she might even find more than a tree at the...

SO Many Cookies!  Wow! Belinda and her dad made a LOT of cookies! Did your family ever decide to make one kind of cookie but have so much fun you had to make more? One of Belinda's cookies unexpectedly "disappeared." Read the book to find out who the culprit was!  

Inside the box  Do you ever get a Christmas present before Christmas? From someone far away? Are you allowed to open it, even though it's not Christmas yet? Belinda got to open a present from her grandmother yesterday, and she is SO excited! She had to wait an extra...

21 More Days Until Christmas! Today is Day 3 of the story, and it's a special day for Belinda! Today is the day she can tell her friends at school why her mom is so far away. If your mom was far away, I'll bet that your friends would have questions too, so be sure you...

Bedtime Stories and Hard Questions!   If you read yesterday's story, you know that Belinda's mom had a very hard question for her!  And today, Belinda is ready to begin finding answers and drawing pictures of her ideas! She likes to show her mom the pictures on Skype...

Oh no! You don't have a book yet?... It's okay! The first story starts today, but there are TWENTY-FIVE stories, and it's easy to catch up.  Here's a picture of Custard, who is a big star of the story (you definitely want to meet Custard!).  My family reads a story...

Advent Starts Tomorrow! Time to Start Reading!...   What an exciting time! If you already have a copy of The Girl Who Found Christmas: An Advent Calendar Storybook, you are ready to curl up and read! If not, you'll be able to catch up on the bedtime stories once you...

Did you know...  Children can color their own version of Belinda, Custard and their snowman? There is a link from the home page of this site (or simply click here to download the page). Many thanks to illustrator Dayne Sislen who created a different version of her...

Time to be Thankful... In 1987 I began celebrating Thanksgiving by writing Thank You notes to people who had made a difference in my life during that year. Writing those Thank You notes has now become an important tradition. One that is often more satisfying than the...

Illustrators Make Magic...        When I finished writing The Girl Who Found Christmas, I knew I needed a special illustrator. It was my incredible good fortune that I found Dayne Sislen. I told her that I had written about a little girl who was practically exploding...