On writing Ms. April & Ms. Mae- a fable:                                       
ForeWord Magazine Picture Book of the Year Finalist

     It started with three images:

     Driving along a narrow road in Maine on a moonlit night, we passed a fox trotting along the top of a stone wall. Very businesslike, she ignored our headlights and continued her way.

                                                    Where was she going?

                                                                           The third was sad:

        At a stop light at a busy intersection, a dead fox lay on the grassy meridian. As the cars rushed back and forth the sun touched her rich fur and it too blazed with Judy's same fiery color. 

​     (Put a dead fox where the cow is and you'll get the idea.)
  

   
      The second was about Judy, who is passionate about animals:
 
     The first time I met her she was furious over broken duck eggs she had been carefully watching, and didn't care who knew it. 

     Another time I followed her as the afternoon sun touched her red hair and turned it into fiery waves. 
    

           
     I could not bring this beautiful animal back to life, but I started to think: fox & woman, woman & fox. Could they be friends? Could they be like sisters? What would they do together?

     In the following years, mass construction and destruction happened in our town. One forest was razed across the street from an elementary school, a whole forest gone, in one day. How many animal dens, burrows and nests were destroyed to make way for houses? 

                                                               How do you explain to children nature doesn't matter anymore?
                                                               What if we, whether human or animal, considered ourselves a family? 

       How will Ms. Mae keep Misters Iddy, Oddic and Dimm from taking her dear friend Ms. April's land?              

 

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