When I was young, my friends and I played in the endless rolling hills behind my home. To get there, we had to sidestep down a short, muddy slope that had a tree hanging off of its side. At the bottom, we hopped along a shallow, trickling stream that ran through a tunnel under the main road. Outside the tunnel, a worn-out farm, a few horses, some sheep, (and I’m pretty sure a cow) welcomed us to the other side. It was the portal to a day of unfettered imagination and the beginning of a new adventure. The chance to escape our clean suburban cul de sac and enter a natural world where anything could be. There were no adults in this world, only kids wandering through the hills, playing, imagining. 

Every living thing became a character. Black and gold salamanders glistening in the shiny waters of hidden streams would dart into the shadows of the banks once they saw us. Suspicious behavior for an amphibian, we thought, surely they must be hiding the entrances to troves of treasure. 

Further up the hills, enormous condors swooped back and forth above our heads. Supposedly, they were searching for tiny animals on the grassy ground, but we knew what they really wanted: the treasure being guarded by those mysterious salamanders . . . and perhaps our sack lunches.

Scattered across the hills, lonely oak trees stood as fortresses where we convened our secret meetings. We would discuss where the treasures might be hidden, how many hours of daylight could be left, and whether or not the dog may have followed us because we left the gate open at home. 

Now if you had asked me back then what we had done all day, I would have said, “playing”. But that wasn’t all of it; we were also storytelling, creating characters from anything along the way. The salamander, the condor, the oak tree.

This is the inspiration behind Wandering Bear Books. 

It is my hope that through these stories, children can escape into that same natural world where anything can be; a place where they can wander, play and imagine.