Willamina and Wendy

Last fall 2025, I completed a collection of thirteen short stories about sisters, Willamina age ten, and Wendy age seven. All of the stories are based on some of my fondest childhood memories. When I was nine my family of seven moved to a very small town in Kansas. The population was around 200 people. My favorite childhood memories are either summer vacations or unsupervised summer adventures out in nature.

I am the oldest child of five children, but my sister, who is one year younger than me, was the one who joined me on these adventures most often. So, I decided a pair of sisters was appropriate for the stories, even though in real life there were sometimes up to five siblings present.

The stories mostly revolve around interacting with animals or plants. Observing and interacting with nature was, and still is, one of my favorite things to do. My siblings and I caught animals from the wild to keep as pets. We were kids, and we didn’t know about any wildlife collection laws we should have followed. But I’ve since learned about threatened or endangered animals and regulations to help keep their population safe. So, I don’t recommend collecting animals from the wild, without checking with your local game and park commission first. A better option is to rescue animals from local shelters or reptile rescue sanctuaries. Do a search online for local options. We didn’t have the internet, or it was brand new, through most of my childhood. (That gives you a clue as to how old I am!)

I was raised Catholic and grew up believing God cares about everything in our lives. The story Stumpy involves praying for God’s help to find Stumpy, the ornate box turtle, who wanders away when Willamina doesn’t watch him. I was once asked if this story was invented for the book or if it was true. It is true. I really did leave one of our box turtles, actually named Stumpy, alone in our garden and lost him. I prayed to find him and did! I can still point out the area where I found him. He had gone about 250 feet from where I left him. Box turtles are actually quite fast! I often prayed about my pets as a child. I prayed to find them again when we lost them, (which was more often than I like to admit) when they were sick, or to keep them safe during their winter hibernation, things like that. I do believe God helped us with our pets and I wanted kids to know God cares about them and their needs no matter how little or unimportant they may seem. If it is important to you, it’s important to God too.

The story called Easter Vigil is about Willamina and Wendy going to a Catholic Mass. I included it right among the other stories about toads and bats because I wanted kids to see worshiping God as another normal part of life. In reality all of the stories in the book are about worshiping God because they are about appreciation for God’s creations. The Easter Vigil is the only story that points out explicitly the worship of God, but other stories do so implicitly, with things like the wonder of a caterpillar becoming a moth, the silence of a snow-covered field, and the joy of working together with friends even when the plans don’t work out.

I wrote this book to share some of my memories with my own daughters, but I also hope it inspires children to get out into their own backyards or parks and discover the delights God has given them in the great outdoors.