Comox Valley’s newest child book author, Deanna Graham, is introducing her first book of the “Jackson series,” Jackson and Nanna Hunting Dinosaurs, as a charity event for the Comox Valley Child Development Association (CVCDA).
Graham’s love for fossils and dinosaurs grew from finding a 65-million-year-old large piece of agatized wood in the petrified forest on Elsmere Island, Nunavut, back in 1993. She has recently found her first dinosaur bone in Campbell River.
Excited with the arrival of her grandson, she started singing a little tune to him so he would remember her voice living so far away. This love has grown into a book series. The second book, Jackson and Mamma’s Day at the Beach, also released on Amazon the same day.
This book is different because kids can write their own name in the narrative, they can sing it, act it out and count hidden objects. The colours are purposely bright. Armed with only a little bit of high school art, Graham feels the kids get a better connection to a less computer-generated graphic. It was only when she had her great nephew who is high-end spectrum autistic sample the book, that she got the idea to make it count for a cause.
This event runs from noon to 3 p.m. Saturday, Sept. 28 at the Courtenay and District Museum (207 4th St.). One dollar from every book and $5 from each dinosaur tail will be donated to CVCDA. There will also be a dinosaur hunt, pin the tail on the dinosaur, raffles and door prizes for the kids. Quality Foods Comox is donating monster cookies with M&Ms in them to go with the polka dots theme. We are inviting the public to also just stop by and perhaps drop a donation in the donation jar.
A special thanks to Queneesh Daycare Centre for sampling the books and modelling the tails.