My love affair with children's picture books began over sixty years ago as I helped my mother turn the pages of "The Little House" by Virginia Lee Burton. I always had a pencil and notebook handy so I could scribble down little poems and stories. As a kindergarten teacher, I developed a program that used the messages in picture books to help children deal with the many challenges they face in those formative years. While raising my own three children, I continued to write stories and utilized reading, crafting and cooking activities with my kids to help build the more...