books

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The Tree That Sat Down

“Never Get A Wizard Mad At You”
Book One in the Upstairs Armadillo Series

My new book begins when the upstairs armadillo is discovered in Emma’s sock drawer.

The upstairs armadillo is not a character I invented.

My mother was the first one to see Charles Alexander and the upstairs armadillo. When I was little, she would tell me stories about Charles Alexander and the upstairs armadillo. They lived in her house when she was growing up and together they created a great deal of mischief.

That was many years ago. Fast forward to the fall of 2020. During a wind storm one of the trees behind my house got tired and sat down. Unfortunately, when the tree sat down, it lost it’s balance and fell onto my house.

I came home in the evening to find it’s branches poking into my office and the rain pouring in. What a mess!

The tree that sat down on my house.
Tree being craned off of the house.
Repairs underway

Everything had to be taken out. Most of the furniture was beyond saving, but somehow the stacks of papers and boxes of files that were stored in that room escaped unharmed.

When I was sorting through them, I found a large envelop that I had forgotten I had. It must have been twenty years or more since I had last looked at it It contained a story my mother had written about the upstairs armadillo and Charles Alexander.

I read the story. It wasn’t very long. It was really just the beginning of a story. That night I fell asleep thinking about the upstairs armadillo and Charles Alexander. In the morning I began writing.

The result was “Never Get A Wizard Mad At You” Book One in the Upstairs Armadillo Series.

It is available through my web site: theclickercenter.com
And through Amazon. Get it as an ebook through Kindle Unlimited.

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A New Book!

Never Get A Wizard Mad At You
Book One in the Upstairs Armadillo Series

I am delighted to announce that I have a new book out.

My mother was the first one to see Charles Alexander and the upstairs armadillo. I don’t remember how old I was when she first told me about them, maybe six or seven. It was before we converted the attic over the garage into a bedroom. I remember that because we used the attic as a painting studio. I drew dragons, wonderful fiery red, fierce dragons, while my mother told me stories about Charles Alexander and the upstairs armadillo. They lived in her house when she was little.

That was many years ago. Fast forward to 2020, the covid year. In October my area was hit by a wind storm that went on for hours. One of the trees behind my house got tired and sat down. Unfortunately, when the tree sat down, it lost it’s balance and fell against my house. It took the roof out. I came home in the evening to find it’s branches poking into my office and the rain pouring in. What a mess!

Everything had to be taken out. Most of the furniture was beyond saving, but somehow the stacks of papers and boxes of files that were stored in that room escaped unharmed.

When I was sorting through them, I found a large envelop that I had forgotten I had. It must have been twenty years or more since I had last seen it. It contained a story my mother had written about the upstairs armadillo and Charles Alexander.

I read the story. It wasn’t very long. It was really just the beginning of a story. That night I fell asleep thinking about the upstairs armadillo and Charles Alexander. In the morning I began writing.

I learned a long time ago that when stories come to you, you need to let them. If you say you’re busy and you’ll get to it later, the story will go away and it won’t come back. It will find someone else.

The upstairs armadillo had waited a long time for someone in my family to tell his story. So I sat down at the computer and began to write. This book and the others in the Upstairs Armadillo Series are the result.

They aren’t the stories my mother told me. That was many years ago. Charles Alexander and the upstairs armadillo have had many new adventures since then. These are the stories they shared with me.

“Never Get A Wizard Mad At You” is Book one in the Upstairs Armadillo series. You can order it on my web site: theclickercenter.com. And of course it is also available through Amazon and other on-line book sellers. On Amazon the book is available as an ebook through kindle unlimited. That means for kindle subscribers you get to read the book for free. If you’re curious about the sort of children’s books that I write, this is a great way to find out.

I love the Upstairs Armadillo stories. I hope you’ll share them with the young readers in your life. And do please leave reviews for the books so others can find them.

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Doing It ALL Wrong

Book announcements – that’s the “it” I’m referring to in the title. I do them all wrong. I know this. I’ve read various “how-to’s” for launching a new book in this digital age. I’ve received plenty of the emails that are meant to make me feel as though I am missing out on the greatest secret, the best bargain, the most amazing opportunity if I don’t hit the “buy now” button in the next five minutes. They’re counting down the minutes even as I hesitate. If still need convincing, here’s what they’re going to add to this amazing, one time only offer.

We’ve all gotten these emails. As an author, many of them are telling me how I can turn my books into best sellers if I will only follow their sure-fire, guaranteed-to-succeed formula. Of course, I want success for my books. I want them to be read.

When I was in the home stretch with “Wishing Well Magic”, I succumbed to one of these offers, just to see what I was missing. Ugh.

That’s all I can say. I would rather sell zero books than sell them that way.

So I am going to market the Kenyon Bear books in the only way I know how. I’m going to do it in the same way that I shared clicker training with all of you. I’m going to begin by believing in the books. I believed in clicker training – not in the way that people mean when they say they believe in the tooth fairy. I knew clicker training worked. I had the evidence not just in my own horses, but in all of my clients’ horses. I knew it was different. I had seen Peregrine stop locking in his stifles after eight years of struggling to make his body work. He didn’t outgrow the problem. He changed how he used his back. Clicker training gave him the agency to own those changes.

I knew clicker training connected me to my horses in a way that was completely different from anything I had experienced up to that point. It was a difference that was hard to describe. How do you describe the colors of a rainbow to someone who has been blind their whole life? Does their understanding of your metaphors come anywhere close to what you experience?

But enough of you became curious about clicker training and gave it a try. I know some people made a mess of things and gave up on it, but many more of you figured it out. You went out to your barns with your pockets filled with treats. Just as I did so many decades ago, you introduced your horses to clicker training. I shared and you shared, and pretty soon people all around the planet were clicker training their horses.

Clicker training is different. It doesn’t look anything like regular horse training. We use treats! We let our horses say “no” to us. We start with protective contact. We hold targets up for our horses to touch. We train in ridiculously small steps – and we change our horses’ lives.

My children’s books are very similar. They don’t fit the mold of what a children’s book should look like. My characters aren’t super heroes out saving the world, but then neither was Winnie the Pooh or Paddington Bear.

I’m not a parent. I didn’t write stories to teach children lessons I wanted them to learn. I write stories I would have wanted to read when I was little – stories that never betray the magic.

You trusted me when I told you clicker training was worth exploring. I’d like you to trust me again with the Kenyon Bear books. These are books children want to read over and over again. They are books they will tuck under pillow as they fall asleep. How do I know? Because when the first three books were published in the 1980’s, that’s what parents told me.

I set the children’s books to the side so I could concentrate on clicker training. That work is on going. There is always more to be learned. You gave clicker training a try for your study-of-one horses. Now I want you to give the Kenyon Bear Books a try for the study-of-one young readers in your life.

“Wishing Well Magic” is book five in the series. It is about Indy – short for Independence. Indy is a bear with Ideas – ideas that end up getting him in a lot of trouble.


You can order the new book through my web site: theclickercenter.com or from Amazon. When you order through Amazon, do please leave a review. Your five star reviews attract the attention of the algorithms which in turn means more people will find the books.


There, I’ve done everything wrong. I’ve written a long post about the books which was actually more about clicker training than it was about the children’s books. I didn’t offer you special deals. I’m not doing anything the marketers are telling me I need to do to beat the Amazon algorithms.


What I am doing is writing really good stories, stories I would have read and loved when I was little. So if you have young readers in your life, or, like me, you still read with pleasure books that the library puts in the children’s book section, do check out the Kenyon Bear Books. All five books in the series are now available at theclickercenter.com or on Amazon.