Hi! I’m a retired educator, father, and grandad who wanted to write something adults could share with their kids. The book has deliberate opportunities to discuss fun things with your kids—favorite trips, favorite movies, favorite foods.

You may be wondering why a 77 year old retired dean would suddenly write a kids’ book. I kinda wonder about that myself, sometimes. The answer is complicated.

Firstly, I like to write and have started (not finished) a slew of stories and books over the years. Only seems reasonable I should finally finish one while I still can. My daughter held a writing workshop a while back, and I came out of it energized to actually write something for other people to read. Tommy came out of that.

Secondly, I love kids and have invested uncounted hours in teaching and working with them. From that experience, I’ve developed a firm belief that young people have as complex and morally nuanced mental lives as adults. I think all too many kids’ books treat children as childish, which they most certainly are not. I wanted to give kids a book in which the young hero was a fully drawn character: Someone who struggles with fear and responsibility and relationships just like everyone else.

Thirdly, I think all too many young people today don’t have enough elderly friends. One of my goals in writing Tommy was to show that young people and old people can have strong, growing, mutually fulfilling relationships. At the beginning of the story, Tommy’s aunt hardly knows him
and her two companions have never met him. By the end, they are all bonded together in a relationship of mutual love and respect. Kids need to know they can have friends of all ages. So do old people.

Fourthly, I didn’t write Tommy to be read simply by children. I wrote it to be read with children. The book provides numerous opportunities for parents and grandparents to stop the story and engage in the same kinds of discussions Tommy and the ladies have over tea and biscuits. What
are your favorite foods? What are your favorite movies? Did you ever go on a terrible, very bad road trip? Tommy intentionally contains references from the ladies’ youth which a boy Tommy’s age just won’t get. They’re there so that adults can actively engage in the reading experience
with their kids.

And, finally, I believe in the importance and power of stories. Especially family stories. I fear that we, as a people, are losing our stories. When I was a child, I would dearly love listening to my grandfather tell stories of his youth. Stories from a time before electrification, before telephones or airplanes or even, in most cases, automobiles. Simple stories of hunting for your dinner, growing your own food, fighting with your brothers and sisters. Stories that tie together generations.

It is my sincere wish that Tommy might serve as an aid to the telling of family stories. Stories by parents, stories by grandparents. Stories by that weird aunt in the big old house with the big garden out back.

Read it together and tell each other stories.
charlie