How many books have you written?
I just finished No. 25. It's my first novel and I'm so excited I could bust. It'll be practically summer again in 2006 before it's out, from HarperCollins, in case you want to know. There're so many details in this publishing biz and I'm not always a very patient person!

These days I'm working on No. 26 and No. 27. They'll be published by the National Geographic Society. One's about Myles Standish and the Pilgrims, plus I get to tell about all kinds of other stuff going on in Myles's 17th century world -- it's so neat in a complicated, everything's-connected sort of way. The other's about Narcissa Whitman, the Oregon Trail. It has lots of cool extra info too. I'm having almost too much fun!

What's your novel about? And what's the
name of it?
Oh yeah! Man, I go off on tangents, don't I? The novel's going to be called Just For You to Know . The main character is Carmen Cathcart, a 12-going-on-13-year-old girl here in Independence, Missouri, in 1963. She's a daydreamer and she's the oldest in a big messy family. They all seem pretty embarrassing and annoying until -- well, you'll see, Something awful happens and Carmen has to try to save them - and her dreams.

It sounds super -- I can't wait!
Me neither!

I wanted to ask you about some of your other books too, your "ghost" books: Ghosts of the White House, of the Civil War, of the Nile...Are they ghost
stories, really?
Well...It's like this. The books are visits into the past or with people who are, mostly, from our point of view here in their future dead, therefore: ghosts! I write about the time when they are alive, back in the living past, see?

How did you get interested in doing history books?
My favorite books when I was growing up were all of those by Laura Ingalls Wilder. They were wonderful stories that just happened to have happened in the past. I like imagining other times. If you can't have a real time-machine, books make a swell consolation prize. Besides, the past you visit in your imagination can be just as lively and not nearly so sweaty and dangerous as the real deal.

How did you get started?
I went to college to be an art teacher. I figured 'I can color. I can stay in the lines - How hard can this be?' Boy, did I learn a lesson! After I did my student teaching, I wound up doing greeting cards for a living. About 15 years ago, I took samples of my paintings to New York [scary!] and started illustrating books at night, teddy bears by day. As time went by, I began writing, just to see if I could. It's a little-by-little determination-operation. A tortoise, not a hare.

What's your favorite book of all you've done?
I gotta say that my heart's totally stuck on my chapter book about Carmen Cathcart, but I really liked Remember the Ladies, 100 Great American Women. I loved reading and writing about George Washington - oh, and the Civil War. Picture-wise, I like Mark Twain & the Queens of the Mississippi and the Erie Canal book. I love painting sky and water.

What do you paint with?
Watercolor + colored pencil + pastel, sometimes. Mostly watercolor and very pointy paintbrushes and my bony fingers.

Where do you work?
My studio's across the hall from my bedroom. It's got three old oak library tables, The walls are covered with blue-&white wallpaper and loads of pictures and bookshelves.

Do you have any pets?
My Scottie, Maude and two cats, Merrie Emma and Elizabeth.

Of all the people you've written about , who would you like to meet?
Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Abigail Adams, but I'd be too bashful to talk to them. I'd sure get a bang out of listening to them talk to each other!

Would you want to live in another time?
Nope. Well, not unless it was a time with airconditioning and painless dentistry! I'd totally, completely LOVE to visit other times though, to see what people really looked like and hear their voices.

Are you married?
Nope.

Do you have any children?
Just 4-leggers: the dog and the kittycats. I have plenty of nieces & nephews though. I try to get them to call me Aunty Social - that's a joke. Get it?

Yeah, yeah. You seem like you really like your job. Do you?
Even when I don't, I do. I love the reading and finding out things. When writing is going well, there's nothing better, but then, I really like listening to books-on-tape while I paint. Other times I almost think my favorite part is getting to visit with students in their schools. It's so fun!