An IRA-CBC Children’s Choice Book. The drama of this unbelievable but true story is enhanced by Ted Rand’s stunning illustrations.In June 1783, three-year-old Sarah Whitcher wanders into the woods and disappears. For three long days, friends and neighbors search fruitlessly for her. Then a stranger leads the desperate family to a pine tree beneath which the child lies. Sarah tells her rescuers of the “big black dog” that kept her warm every night—but the bear tracks encircling her tell a different tale.
“A treat for ‘pioneer story’ buffs.”—
School Library Journal I grew up on a dairy farm in a region known as Vermont's Northeast Kingdom, along with one sister and three brothers in an area our Scottish ancestors settled almost two hundred years ago.
Since graduating from Johnson State College Vermont with majors in both art and athletic training, I have worked as a coach, trainer, energy auditor for the Extension Service, and mostrecently as Elderhostel Director and cross-country ski instructor at the Craftsbury Sports Center before turning to writing full-time.
I have many passions. I am an athlete, naturalist, artist, and a writer, and all of the things I do are rooted in the Northeast Kingdom. I run five to ten miles each morning, cross-country ski, mountain bike, swim, and play tennis. I also played field hockey all across the country for many years. I love the outdoors, and study and sketch birds and wildflowers which are most often the subjects of my watercolor paintings. For the past seven years, my husband, Tom, and I have beenbuilding a timber-frame house. We both enjoy working with wood, and Tom shares my love of the land, sports and animals: we have a Morgan horse, five dogs, and eight cats. We lovegardening and have planted an orchard of old apple varieties. And I love histories and walking old cemeteries.
My first children's booklı