Our Story

Once upon a time, as the story goes, about three years ago, my best friend, Marylin Krepf and I would meet for lunch once a week, at our favorite restaurant (where monk-like chefs prepared food—where every stir and chop was a meditative experience, as they advertised). On one particular occasion, Marylin insisted, in her empathetically enthusiastic way, that the following week, I HAD to come to her house to watch a movie. It was VERY IMPORTANT to her, and she JUST KNEW that I would ABSOLUTELY LOVE THIS MOVIE!!

When the day came, after she had finally talked me into it, she served me a tasty lunch (take-out from our monk cafe) and then proceeded to put in a DVD called “Miss Potter,” which is the story of Beatrix Potter, the famous author of Peter Rabbit and other tales. This was not a new movie at the time, but I had not seen it yet. The movie was like magic! It rekindled in me a desire to write children’s books. I had taken a course a few years back, but then had never actually done it. Marylin knew nothing of this.

That same afternoon Marylin shared a story with me about a cat they had, when they lived in Siberia. This fluffy, "sweet" silver-grey cat named Seymour had an idiosyncrasy, which was a challenge to live with. He would leap off a high shelf every single night, at 11 PM—you could set your watch by it—and would attempt to land on her head! She had learned a tennis-like move to redirect the crazy cat’s landing to the hallway, instead of on her head!

The next day, inspired by the humor of Marylin’s “11 PM leaping cat” story, I sat at my computer and wrote it down, because the story struck me as so peculiar and strange and funny, to say the least! (Imagine living with a cat like that!) Later that day, when we talked on the phone, I shared with her that I had written down the story of her Siberian cat, and she asked me to read it to her. She was impressed with my writing style, which was encouraging, because she used to work professionally as an editor. This was the first time I had heard that she had been an editor, and it was the first time she had heard that I like to write children’s stories!

A couple of days later, we met at a local bookstore to look at the books in the children’s section. I was so disappointed with the lack of imagination and stye of the illustrations, and most of the written content was uninteresting, and some even scandalous! I finally found just one book, which both of us liked. Believe it or not, it was a collection of Beatrix Potter’s stories. We had come full circle! We decided then and there that we would create wholesome and better-quality children's books. Our books would inspire a child’s imagination, without corrupting influences! We also decided to hire the best illustrators out there. We’ve been having fun putting stories together ever since.