It all began on a lazy day last summer…

Hello, I’m Jacquelyn Elnor Johnson, the person who created this website with a lot of help from my son, Jesse. I’m here to tell you how it all got started and what else you’ll find on this site.

We are a small family business that creates non-fiction books for kids and adult readers. We never expected to write books about pets, and we never expected to create a website for kids who love pets.

But that all changed starting one hot afternoon last summer.

Our young (age 8) friend and neighbour Tristan was over for a visit, and he was Bored With Summer.

Didn’t want to beat me (again!) at Monopoly.

Didn’t want to play Crazy 8s or Hearts.

Had already seen every kid movie known to kiddom.

Didn’t want to help weed the garden, go for a walk, visit the park, bake cookies or do anything else I could offer for entertainment. Tristan was stricken with the Summer Blahs and summer vacation had barely started!

In desperation, I suggested we needed a project.

Something FUN. And BIG.

“Like, uh, what?” T. said.

“Well,” I said, “what if we write a book together?”

Glimmer of interest.

“We could do that?”

“Sure. Why not?”

He grabbed another sour gummy worm, chewing it thoughtfully. “What about?”

“Anything you want it to be about.”

He pondered this. “Well, I don’t know…”

“Ok,” I said, “how about pets? Your family has a houseful of pets. We could write about that.”

Tristan’s family has two dogs, a cat, a bearded dragon and three leopard geckos. There are more pets than people at his house!

Right now, that’s true at our house, too, where we are looking after five little kittens.

We decided to start with a book about Tristan’s favourite pet, his leopard gecko called Gizmo. He learned about doing research at the library and online, asking people questions about their pets, brainstorming, doing a mind-map, organizing research and chapters and we sat together to write and edit.

Sometimes we disagreed about what to include and what to say. We worked it out. He helped choose the photos.

He also gained greater respect, appreciation and compassion for the pets in his life (that message is also in the books).

The result is the first book in the Best Pets For Kids Series, I Want a Leopard Gecko. We wrote the book, put it together and published it before school started.

During his summer vacation, Tristan had become a published author! It was very exciting!

And so (again) had I as his co-author. Since summer 2016, Tristan and I have written three more I Want a Pet books for the series. Click on the covers to find out more about each book.

There are now 10 books in our animals and pets series (more about the other books in a moment).

Friends Who Write Together

Here’s how Tristan and I work together. We talk about the pet and what we already know about having that pet.

We talk about what pictures we’ll need and how to get them.

We do research by reading books from the library, finding more information online and asking pet owners about having that pet.

When our pile of research is just about big enough to topple over, we read through and talk about everything we’ve discovered about that pet.

From there, we do a mindmap. A mindmap is a picture of what will be in the book. This is one of the most fun parts of planning a book. With a piece of poster board and coloured markers, we write down everything that could be in the book.

Some things we wrote down on our mindmap are where to get this pet, what care it needs, what it eats, what does it need for its new home and what to name your pet.

We took all the mindmap points, put them together to form chapters and were ready to start writing!

Then we wrote, sometimes together, or sometimes I would write a rough draft and we’d read and edit together. Tristan often made good comments or suggested changes that made our book better.

There are a lot of steps needed to publish a book after it is written. Crimson Hill Books (our family publishing company) handled all that.

Though I have written hundreds of articles and more than 20 books, never before had I enjoyed a close book-writing partnership. Now, I wonder why I waited so long to work with a writing partner.

Do You Want To Write A Book?

If you are a child who wants to write a book, start by thinking what you want to write about, and who would read it? Then, do this.

Writing With Your Child As Co-Author

If you are an adult and there is a child in your life, I urge you to write a book together. It’s an eye-opening experience and a whole new way of relating to your child, whether they are your son or daughter, grandchild, niece or nephew or, like Tristan, a friend.

When you write with a child, you gain and share a unique way of seeing the world through his or her eyes. You are learning together. It’s FUN, it’s BIG, and it’s something you will always remember enjoying together!

The Fun Facts for Kids Series

In our research, we found so much great material it seemed it was calling out to be not one book, but several books.

So I wrote these fun facts books to complement the Best Pets For Kids series. These are (so far):

What Else Is On This Website?

You’re invited to explore!

You’ll find some fun free stuff for kids, posts about different pets you might like to have and where to find out more about these pets and information for parents, guardians and teachers.

We’re always adding more information (and writing more books!) If you’d like to know when the next book is coming out, or when we add more to this website, let us know in an email to Jacquelyn (at)BestPetsForKids.fun We promise not to fill your in-box, but just get in touch now and then when there’s something to say about pets.

Let’s Talk Some More About Pets!

Is there a topic you wish we’d cover in a post on this site? Or in a book for preteen readers or their parents and teachers? Let us know in an email to Jacquelyn (at) BestPetsForKids.fun or by using this Contact Form.