I lived on a sailboat on the island of Guam for eleven years and sailed the islands of Micronesia while studying the secrets of the ancient Pacific navigators. I eventually returned to the mainland U.S. to be closer to my grandchildren, but returned to the Pacific every year for the past nine years.
It's been a year since I was a "Visiting Author" for the public schools on the island of Guam, courtesy of the Guam Chapter of the International Reading Association. It's gratifying to think that my novel, Brothers of the Fire Star, is a success on the island and is being used in the schools in their reading programs.
It's a long flight to Guam--literally to the other side of the planet--and the schedule was tough. I visited sixteen schools in six days and often presented to five hundred students in each school. At the end of the week, I was exhausted but happy as I boarded the plane for the thirty-hour trip back home.
Brothers of the Fire Star has won literary awards in Adventure fiction, Young Adult fiction, and Historical fiction and is set on Guam and in the islands of Micronesia during World War II.