Click on Susie for information about family Click on the bookshelf for information about her books.

A new century, a new business? In 2001, I realized my business had grown up. For the past decade I have been writing with children in classrooms and teaching teachers and parents how to support their children in loving to read and write.

Once upon a time, I had a business called Once Upon a Lap. I gave home children's book parties where I sold books to fund my presentations. I liked the talking better than the actual selling, but I kept the name because it represented the feelings I had when I shared books. While I still believe in the Lap Method of Teaching Reading, I realized that much of my work is about writing, my writing about books, my thoughts about how reading influences writing, and the joys I've found in sharing writing and reading with children, parents, and teachers.

Four years ago, with the help of my Webmaster, Braxton Sherouse, I put together my Once Upon a Lap website. We posted articles that I had written over twenty years on over 160 subjects and added new ones as well. Those reviews are still a part of the Wilde Writing Works website, they are still a part of my writing life and I will still keep sharing my book discoveries with you. When we first organized the website, I realized that I'd written articles that covered every letter of the alphabet, we posted them from A to Z and it took us four years to do so. Each of these articles was once a published piece. Not all are perfectly edited, and sadly, some of the books may no longer be in print, but you might find them in your library.

I am currently finding joy in working with teachers who are discovering with me how writing works, with Wilde Writing Works. I will share those perceptions as well on this site, updating you on what I'm doing, where I'll be presenting and what I'm discovering in workshops and classrooms.

I had a professor in college who thought the best way to teach reading was the Lap Method. "You put a child on your lap, share books, and your child grows up to love reading." I believe a lot more happens in laps than just catching the love of reading.

I grew up in a home of turmoil, but when my mother put me on her lap to read, books became a place of security, sanity, magic, and closeness. Fifteen years ago my first child was born and when I read aloud I experienced the same joys I'd had as a child, but in a whole new way.

I am grateful for children's books. They rescued me many times when I didn't how to speak about certain subjects with my children. They've opened up portals to communication I never would have imagined. Children's books made daily stress fade away during our nightly reading; we laugh away tension and to connect over sad endings. Books made characters a part of our family and their conflicts so real we felt the triumph of their resolutions. When the world seems so fast and stressful, children's books offer a time for adults and children to escape together and understand each other better.

For the past eight years I've shared books in classrooms and workshops, inviting people of all ages to join me in delighting and wondering about their truths. Over the past fourteen years I've written twenty-some children's books, children's book reviews on over a hundred themes, delivered a multitude of radio commentaries, interviewed many of my favorite writers and illustrators, composed articles about the adventures I've had with children and my own learning. As I grew so did the variety, quantity, and quality of my work. Each piece represents an adventure I took that was inspired by wondering and a desire to help others wonder with me. This web page is a sharing of my journeys and the magic I've found along the way.