…children’s writer

…as a children’s writer

I have written seven books for kids and I have tens of them in my head. I love writing for kids, telling stories to kids, playing with kids…

So far, five of my children’s books have appeared in English. They have been published by our own company and I am looking for a partner to reach wider audiences, more kids to tell stories to.

First, let me introduce you to “My Family Tales” stories: “Marta’s Toes”“Anna’s Teeth”, and “Lena´s Laugh”. These are short stories from one family’s everyday world that are “full of childlike whimsy,” as one reviewer put it. It is a world of bugs that talk and bath bubbles that whisper, and there are a lot of questions in this world. What is Angel Grandma doing under the ground? How big is a whale’s fart? Can snails live in your secret treasure box?

Another source of my stories, besides everyday life, is the world’s treasure box of fairy tales. I am a big admirer of fairy tales, and I collect folklore story collections from all over the world. So far, I have retold dozens of these stories in “Fairy Tales about Love”, and I am working with some other ideas, like scary stories. It is amazing how tales from Africa or South America or Greenland or China have some weird details in common… And I can see something very deep and ancient reflecting back from kids’ eyes when they listen to these tales.

I am also writing stories about nature. How do kids and trees – or mushrooms, or birds – communicate? What happens when we get lost? Are we able to hear over the other voices in the forest to notice the sounds of the apple trees in our garden calling us home? … Here are samples of my nature stories: “Cloud After Cloud”, “I Give You a River” and  “When Mushrooms Still Spoke”.  My next nature story is about bugs and flies, and about an “out of body” experience. I’ll keep you posted!

A recent title is “Take a Guess”, an innovative picture book guessing game.

epp.petrone@petroneprint.ee is the easiest way to get in touch with me.