The Beauty Series: Bringing Up Beauty, A Different Kind of Beauty and Beauty Returns, represents the books for which I’m best known. Essentially they follow Elizabeth as she fosters first a black Lab, Beauty I, then a Chocolate Lab, Beauty II, and finally a golden retriever, Magic.
In the second book, the view point splits to hers and that of sixteen year old Kyle’s who gets a white cane instead of a driver’s license. In the third, they go out. No dogs every die.
Over the course of creating Kyle, I met and chatted with many people with visual impairments.
I also wrote the lyrics for a song because I wanted him to sing a lullabye but darned if I wanted to track down rights. Angela McKay, one of the women I interviewed, is a singer songwriter and she and her husband Brian helped me set the words to music.
This trailer gives snippits of all three novels with Angela singing Kyle’s Lullabye.
My son, Craig McNicoll, did the filming and editing. There are voiceovers for Elizabeth (Jennifer Filopowicz, my daughter) Alicia (Eireann McNicoll, my daughter-n-law) and a scene with Kyle acted by Ian Garden, Eireann’s brother. Many dogs acted in this video including Buster, Beauty’s brother. Yes there is now a real Beauty named for the book. Also the golden retriever belongs to Amy, another young woman who fosters guide dogs because she readBringing Up Beauty.
The covers of my novels were painted by Shariff Taribay.
For me the video reminds me of a huge voyage in my life and all the wonderful docks (as well as dogs) along the way. Listen carefully to the end and you’ll hear my granddaughter Violet give a cry.
If you know a dog lover, you should buy these three books. Available from the usual online sources but also at Burlington’s A Different Drummer Book Store.
To keep up with trends for babies my editing job with Today’s Parent Toronto, I like to go to the various baby shows.
I dragged my son Craig (and film maker for my excellent new trailer, and his baby girl Violet. Not in the photo is beautiful Mom Eirean and Bob, my photo sidekick and partner in life.
We had a really good time testing out all kinds of equipment. Here you see me trying a Fisher Price infant chair for editors.
A writer wears many hats. Here I am wearing antlers. Visiting Sudbury to present in schools, this time Coppercliff and then the next day Walden Public School, allows me a chance to browse Science North and report on the new Wild Life Rescue exhibit. I loved the Born to be Wild 3d Imax as well. After seeing it, kids will be happy to pledge to help save the environment. In the exhibit there are several posters suggesting different commitments the children can make to help save endangered species and all animals in general. The antlers are part of the exhibit.
In the schools, I talked about different novels depending on the age group. The response was phenomenal. Kids stopped me in the hall to thank me or tell me how wonderful an author I am.
In the photo, the whipped cream on the face is a demonstration on rewriting for plausibility.
All of these students’ parents gave permission for photos so witness protection programs weren’t ruined or anything. You have to love panoramic shots because once the students noticed what I was doing they would try to sneak across to be in all of the shots. Didn’t work. To my disappointment as well
Last week I had a great time with grade 5, 5/6 and 4/5 at Paul A Fisher School. Look at all my young writers hard at work, nose to the pencil. I love the sound of students writing.
The challenge this week was we divided the day in three to match the wonderful nutritional breaks. Stopping to eat twice a day, sheer brilliance I think. This made switching classes easier than what I normally do which is teach only two classes and leave mid third period to divide the time equally.
But there wasn’t a lot of time for my fun little exercises such as team menu writing for the apples I hand out. Or a lesson on putting the quotation marks in and changing paragraphs (not so much fun). Or even finishing a draft of a story.
Hmm, I guess I’ll have to rework my AIE lesson plans to allow for less time.
I only hope if I offer this three class day, the teachers don’t insist I fit two classes in each time segment.
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