Thursday, December 3, 2009

Yvonne Palka



Dragon Fire, Ocean Mist

By Yvonne Palka

ISBN: 13978-0-9817668-0-5

HeartRock Press





On the wild ocean coast of Washington State you’ll find enormous sea stacks at Point of Arches, Shi Shi Beach. The rocks loom high and dark over the water, like the backs of
ancient mythical creatures. When Jaxon and Allie encounter the Shi Shi dragons, they are quickly befriended by the whole family. But no one is safe from the thieving, temperamental dragon Zorg and his strange brood. Allie and Jaxon will need all the ingenuity they can muster––as well as the help of Niji, the dragon foundling––to defeat the dark-winged Zorg and restore peace to Shi Shi Beach.

BIOGRAPHY
Yvonne Palka is not your average grandmother. Part-time Twin Cities resident/part-time Whidbey Island, WA resident, a retired college professor and biologist, a sumi-e (Asian brush painting) artist, and now an award-winning children’s book author of Dragon Fire, Ocean Mist (HeartRock Press, 2009). And, believe me, Palka’s dragons are not your grandmother’s dragons!

When Palka became a grandmother she would often take the youngest of her brood to gaze upon the mile-long cavalcade of sea stacks and natural arches called the Point of Arches at Shi Shi Beach in Olympic National Park. She would ask the children, “Do you think these are just rocks? Or are they dragons asleep in the sand?” Thus began her affinity for creating dragon adventure stories and combining them with her talent as a sumi-e artist. Dragon Fire, Ocean Mist is a chapter book written and illustrated by Palka based on the stories she has been creating through the years as she watched her children and grandchildren grow.

Dragon Fire, Ocean Mist was recently awarded a bronze medal in the “Best First Chapter Book” category of the Moonbeam Children’s Book Awards of the Jenkins Group Publishing service.

Palka will be in the Twin Cities for the next couple of months, and will be doing some presentations at the local Barnes and Noble in Maple Grove, MN and visiting several schools in the area for school book fairs. The kids will have the opportunity to try their hand at sumi-e painting. Palka will also be an author-in-residence with the 4th graders at Oakview Elementary School the week of December 14, 2009. For more information on the author and her Minnesota event lisText Colortings, please visit: http://nwdragons.com

WEBSITE
www.NWDragons.com

EMAIL
info@NWDragons.com