My Story

Thanks for reading about me. -- Yes, I’m the author with the strange name and funny picture! Well, let me explain that. As you can guess, it’s not my real name, but it was chosen for me so the readers of my books could understand how I could possibly know so much about all the kids in my stories.

My name and picture may  not completely explain that, but perhaps it helps a little. So, as a quick flashback, you may wonder how this all got started.

Well, it started with my older sister who was the real Ms. Lane. She was an elementary school teacher for more than forty years in America. During that time, she told lots of stories about her students and the challenges they faced as they grew up and became young adults.

Those stories provided me the inspiration to write this series of books

“Adventures in Growing Up”. – So, that’s how it started! When this happened, I was a business executive in Saudi Arabia. Suddenly, I was going to magically become an author! Oh, my! – How in the world was I going to write stories about kids in elementary school growing up?

I began to research adventures from my own extended family including my children, cousins, nieces, nephews, sisters, in-laws, etc. You wouldn’t believe what I discovered!

I thought about this writing task for a long time before it hit me. I decided to create a fictional class of students like Ms. Lane’s class. I would give every kid their own personalities, likes and dislikes, personal problems, successes and dreams about what they wanted to be when they grow up.

That’s a question frequently asked of young ones in real life so, my class needed to know their own answers to that question too! It was important for every student’s story to sound as if it was actually written by that student!

That required me to know a lot about what everyone was thinking, saying, and doing! -- And, it was not just the kids growing into adults, but it was also the thoughts of their parents, friends and Ms. Lane!

Think about that! It was a big job, because there were twenty-five kids in the class that grew into world citizens! That’s when I realized I needed help from some very special people. I needed to be a fly on the wall!

Fortunately for me, I have lived an adventurous life which has given me many personal experiences that I have included in the stories. Some came from watching my children and their friends but, others had to be researched or described from various friends and/or acquaintances.

My objective was to make each story, albeit fictional, become as real as possible to the reader. I hope I’ve done that, because many of

the adventures in these stories are very true. I enjoyed sprinkling an international flavor into some of the stories, because I feel it will help open the minds of young readers and encourage them to think and dream beyond the boundaries of a local environment.

These include experiences like Cindy’s studies to become a cordon bleu chef, Gaelle’s upbringing in England, Larry’s language difficulties, Pete’s dreams of flying, and even Wendy’s writings.

For me, as an engineering and business school graduate, becoming a first-time children’s book author has been a difficult but an extremely rewarding experience.

My dream is that you and other readers, from elementary students to great-grand parents, will enjoy these “Adventures of Growing Up” stories

and will continue to build, and live your own exciting dreams regardless of your age!

Aphly Onthawal