When I was 6 I wrote my first chapter book series. It was entitled Robin Hood Conquers the Monsters. I still have it. In fact I just pulled it out of an old envelope my mother saved for me. The memory of gathering paper and crayons around me and giving word, shape and form to my vision is still there for me. But even more, I have this image of Robin Hood in my head. This image, this picture that I got from a chapter book with pictures that I read…well I saw Robin Hood clearly. I was inspired by the pictures of him fighting with Little John on the log, crossing the creek. I was inspired by his band of merry men in the wood dining on stag flesh. Every last picture burned bright in my imagination.

After Robin Hood Conquers the Monsters, was to come a sequel: Robing Hood Conquers the Martians. Beyond that there were no doubt many other daunting creatures and enemies that I envisioned Robin Hood conquering.

But the images that inspired me are leading me on this path of discovery about the creative abilities of kids, and how pictures excite their imaginations.

I created the DaVinchy Series while Fran Panza and I were working on our first book, Doctor Walter and His Plan to Populate the Moon. We needed a little mouse who lived with Dr. Walter to bear witnesss to Dr. Walter’s creative genius. Fran gave me drawing after drawing – and in each one there was a little something amiss….eyes too big, nose too big, not enough mouth for expression, and so forth.

But when I saw DaVinchy – really saw him for the first time, a 50 book chapter book series – chapter books for kids – exploded into my head almost as whole cloth.

There is power in pictures to excite the imagination in untold ways. I designed and built my own house – and it was the image of it that came first that I held in my mind while I then had to proceed to detail graphically as a blueprint and as a physical rendering to begin the building.

So we offer our little chapter book series to the world with the express intent of inspiring kids to create, to tap into their imaginations, to inspire their love of reading. And we give the first free book away to you – as our love offering, and to prime the pump of visual imagination that is waiting inside your child!

Perhaps from these adventures your child’s own fertile mind with tap into inspirations that will fuel a generation’s desire for great stories, great inventions, or great intentions soon to be fulfilled.