When I was young, one of my favorite picture books was Mr. Bear Squash You All Flat by Morrell Gipson. I loved the bear's silly name and the funny illustrations. Most of my time was not spent on reading, though, my favorite activity was sports. I was always playing baseball, soccer or basketball.

Another favorite activity was drawing, especially cartoons. I could always impress my friends with a quick rendering of Mickey Mouse or Pluto. My parents encouraged my creativity, and I always did well in art class. But it wasn't until I turned 20 that I decided to make my living as an artist.

I worked at whatever jobs I could find: cleaning out buildings, supervising children at a playground, mixing mortar for masons. But no matter what I did by day, I was an artist at night. I painted pictures every evening.

How did I know how to paint? I read books about art.

Soon I was a professional artist, painting during the week and selling my pictures to tourists on weekends. All this practice paid off. I was offered a job at a film studio, painting backgrounds for animated films. This is where I learned how to draw funny cartoons.

In 1978, my dog Buffy introduced me to Margaret Cameron and her dog Booker. We all fell in love (I liked Marg the best) and moved from the city to a big old house in the country. Life was different out there. Lots of funny things happened to us, like the time the cows wandered into the cabbage or when I thought it might be fun to keep bees. I couldn't resist doing cartoons about all these funny experiences. I even started writing short stories for magazines.

In 1985, I was asked to illustrate my first picture book, The Dingles by Helen Levchuk. I had so much fun illustrating that book, that I started writing my own stories. There was only one problem. No one wanted to publish them!

One day, I showed my stories to Frank Edwards, a friend from Harrowsmith magazine. Frank knew all about producing quality books. He thought we should form our own publishing company, and that's just what we did. We called our company Bungalo Books. Since Frank and I would often read to our children, we decided our books should be fun for both young people and adults. Our motto would be: "Reading for the Fun of It!"

My first book was called The Bungalo Boys: Last of the Tree Ranchers. In our first year, we printed 5,000 copies. Since then, Bungalo Books has published more than 20 titles and sold almost 1.5 million copies.

In 1993, my family and I moved to Tucson, Arizona. Frank and I are still working together (our desks are just a little farther apart!). We have some exciting books planned for the future. We hope that children and parents will continue to enjoy our stories and that Bungalo Books will help young people everywhere begin a lifetime of "Reading for the Fun of It!"

Happy reading. Visit my personal website, if you want even more information about me.

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