I'm pleased you've stopped by.  I hope you'll enjoy learning more about my books and about me.  My newest nonfiction book is set in the Civil War, during the summer of 1863. Union General Ulysses Grant and his army have surrounded the little city of Vicksburg, Mississippi. They are determined to force its surrender and silence the guns that stand guard over the Mississippi River, preventing any Northern ships from using that great water highway.

Inside Vicksburg, Lucy, age ten, and Willie, eleven, are doing everything they can to survive the siege. With shells falling on the city night and day, townspeople live in caves to stay safe. But as food supplies dwindle and everyone weakens from hunger, it’s clear they can’t hold out for long.

With the Union Army is twelve-year-old Fred, the son of General Grant. He experiences battle, camp life, and a wound that nearly costs him his leg.

In this dramatic account of the forty-seven day siege and the battles leading up to it, you’ll experience both sides of one of the most crucial campaigns of the Civil War and in the process you’ll get to know three extraordinary children who were there.

I am currently at work on a book tentatively titled Charles Dickens and the Street Children of London. I recently lived in London for several months and spent some time at the British Library researching the topic of street children during the Victorian Era. I kept bumping into information about Dickens and his role in persuading the upper classes to bring about social reform for the lower classes. I don’t think most of us reading one of Dickens’ novels realizes that many of them were calculated to do this very thing.

In this new book, I am connecting the dots and showing how, through his writing, Dickens was one of the greatest reformers who ever lived. He proved that the pen is indeed mightier than the sword. Right now I anticipate that this new book, published by Houghton Mifflin, will debut the fall of 2011