I invited my college teacher, who was visiting from Scotland, to dinner but he was afraid to enter my house because it was wood. He lived in a home, hundreds and hundreds of years old made of stone and all his neighbors knew America was due to fall down, all at once, any minute, because we build houses OF WOOD; wood doesn’t last. I finally talked him into coming in but he wasn’t very hungry.
My friend from church saw a snake skin in her garden, ran back in the house and gloved up, pulling the rubber cuffs up over her shirt sleeves and her socks up over her pants bottoms so NO SLITHERING could happen to her. Fears aren’t always logical are they? My friend faced her’s, called her nephew and promised him the snake skin, “Sealing her Super Aunt status” but when she went back to her garden, low and behold, what she had been fearing was A CANDY WRAPPER with cress- crossed markings! Solution: Call pet stores looking for a skin, which she did.
Gracie’s grandfather, who looks a lot like John, is afraid of snakes too, but being a North American he isn’t afraid of wood houses, and his solutions are very surprising. See Gracie’s Grandfather Makes Trouble at Amazon.com.  nancymauerman.com

“For my New Year’s Resolution I’m reviving an old habit!” John told me in the truck “Oh? I asked “Which One?” He couldn’t decide. “Because there are so many?” I said.
Kathy, in my children’s book Bearos has a similar attitude, except she’s not going to change in the first place, she blames dust bunnies for her misbehaviors. Find it at Amazon.com.  nancymauerman.com

Tesla, hearing something downstairs, bounded down them, saw John, and ran back up where I was sleeping, and slapped me the in face.  Tesla ,my cat, and I are usually awake hours before John and evidently he didn’t want me to miss anything. All though the last time I viewed the clock face, the amnesic night before (when by the way Tesla had insisted on being petted constantly), it was 3 AM! We were now up at seven.
Another animal, causing trouble in Kathie’s household is Bearos, who constantly bought Kathy a time-out in “her” corner. For instance washing fish water off the two gold fish in the toilet! See my book Bearos at Amazon.com.  nancymauerman.com

Folklore has always helped create norms in all cultures. Today’s folklore consist of books and various technological entertainments. My dream is to write books about families so delicious they remind us how much we already long to be together.  nancymauerman.com

I was raised with, at that moment in history, the world’s most perfect person but she was always very busy doing or learning a skill or subject. My mother took classes or read books on how to paint horses on my skirts, make strangely shaped stuffed animals, identifying birds, trees, and the life stories behind geological curiosities. She was usually too busy to be with so I never understood kids in books who discovered a treasure or world threatening problem and kept these adventures to themselves. I run yelling out, “Come see what I found!”. The family should have been part of the plot so as things got worse I could pick their brains and my solutions would impress THEM more than the reader.
I still treasure the few times my parents told my they admired my abilities, This didn’t happen often and they never stroked me with empty feel-goods, so this way I knew they meant what they said. I write about this working together as a family in most of my books, although the solutions Kathy has in Bearos, do not impress her busy mother and are obvious to children readers and very funny. See my books on Amazon.  nancymauerman.com

How we would soar if hour after hour our kids viewed stories of themselves and parents doing dishes and saving the world together! We live in a great and wonderful time but most kids don’t work along side their parents as they used to on a farm. In my books they do, see them on Amazon.com.  nancymauerman.com

When I was eight, or there abouts, I folded my arms and leaned against a pine tree. In my mind I was in a smarty pants pose. I’d seen James Dean and others doing this and held them in disdain for it, but I’d looked too long. Often when I study something it becomes desirable. So there I was showing my parents I was growing up to be a brat like James Dean. Except when I left my tree my hair stayed, it was caught in pine sap! My father kindly unstuck my hair, washed it with white gas to get the goo out, and shampooed it too even though he’d been in a hurry. Being a brat wasn’t worth my effort in the presence of good parents.
In Leafman, Who’s Beefman (my children’s picture book, free at amazon for a few more days as an E Book) Anna’s grandmother is having a rough day but is kind and patient when Anna knocks on her door with more problems than any child should have.  nancymauerman.com

While Amy and I were working on my books her daughter Kirani called to get permission to go to a friend’s house for a sleep over and we remembered when we were young enough to think this was fun.
It’s very educational for young people to visit because they can discover various ways of running a household. For the first four or five times I came home after staying over night with a friend I told my mother, “They do everything wrong; let me make a list!
My mother kindly pointed out there are many ways of doing things and added variations to the ones I’d experienced. I thought I’d learned this lesson but upon reflection I realize I still keep a mental list of “wrongs”; just ask John. I tried to HELP him make soup yesterday. So maybe I need a few more sleep overs to remind me there are hundreds of ways to do things right.  nancymauerman.com