I recently published my children’s novel on Kindle. Please check it out and reviews are welcome. Here’s the link with the description below.
The Stair in the Wall: A ‘Love You as You Are’ Book
Every person and creature in The Stair in the Wall — as in life — has their idiosyncrasies and faults..and you can be sure someone is going to point out each and every one of them.
But in Greenwood, the world 9-year-old Sylvia discovers when she finds the stair in the wall of her grandparents’ forbidding house, people’s differences are treated with love, even as their better selves are encouraged to emerge.
It all begins when Sylvia’s adventure-loving mother sets out to see the world – alone. Sylvia’s sad Papawhiskers buries himself in his bird collection. And Sylvia is packed off to her grandparents’ forbidding mansion, where everything she does — and everything she is, with her mocha-colored skin and long curly black hair — seems to be wrong.
Until, that is, she discovers the stair in the wall.
Every child from a broken family wants to bring her parents back together through her own efforts. And every child dreams of a group of friends – however amusingly eccentric – who band together to solve each other’s problems.
Both wishes come true in The Stair in the Wall, a journey both fun and thought-provoking through a world teeming with helpful animals, scary ghosts and the intrigue that awaits us all behind each twisting corner of our imagination. The novel is set squarely in the psychological reality of children — Is the community of Greenwood really Sylvia’s own dream world? Is the gray wraith in reality Sylvia’s sadness at her separation from her parents? The Stair in the Wall captures the hopes, dreams and fears of young people on the verge of discovering who they are…and what they can accomplish through their own courage and bravery.
In the tradition of time-honored books such as The Chronicles of Narnia and The Wizard of Oz, The Stair in the Wall presents the adventure of growing up in rich language that will make both parents and children smile.
About the Author: Claire Ortalda is an award-winning fiction writer whose adult fiction frequently explores the juxtaposition of the whimsical with the realities and challenges of adult life. This is her first work of juvenile fiction.