Guest post by: Ann Cameron

Author of Spunky Tells All, Ann Cameron appears at the Wordstock Festival on Saturday, October 8 at 11am on the Knowledge Universe Stage and also appears at the Children’s Literature Reading Showcase at the Central Library on Wednesday, October 5 at 5pm.

Spunky Tells All is a Portland story born from the lives of a real true Portland dog and cat, an idea that I conceived in the Portland Farmers Market. It’s a book that seemed to take off and write itself, which rarely happens for me.

I was walking through the Portland Farmers market one Saturday visiting with my friends Cati Geddry-Pierce and her husband, Dr. David Pierce. Cati and David began telling me about their pets—their caring and very smart Australian sheep dog, Abbey, and their wild and tremendously accident prone cat, Bella. Bella persecuted Abbey in very special ways. Every day she pawed all his food out of his dish onto the kitchen floor and then splashed water from his water bowl on top of the scattered food. Abbey, for his part, tried to take care of Bella when she got in trouble. Dave and Cati have one of those refrigerators with a pull-out freezer drawer at the bottom—and one afternoon when Cati opened the drawer to put some food in, Bella jumped in too—and Cati didn’t see. Kerflunk! The drawer locked shut. Cat in the very very cold and very well-insulated freezer, from which not a single “Miaow!” could escape.

What did Abbey do in this terrible situation? Cati and David told me—and if you read Spunky Tells All, you’ll find out.

More info about Ann Cameron and her books can be found at www.childrensbestbooks.com