Unleashing Readers

“Imagination”

Perhaps the greatest tangible gift that we can give to a child comes in the form of a book.  Let us consider, for a moment, the wonderful mind of a child, bearing in mind also that the attention span for many youngsters is short-lived.  How do we keep their young minds involved right from the get-go? How do we keep them from staring out of the window momentarily distracted by a cute puppy, an ice-cream vendor’s ringing bell or a friend they have seen passing by?

How do we do this?  We fire up the magical imagination, for imagination by its very nature is a sort of magic.  Someone once said, and I’ll paraphrase here, that imagination is more important than knowledge… it may have been Einstein — rest assured it was a very smart cookie!  My personal belief is that many good things stem from, what Henry the Fifth referred to as ‘imaginary forces.’

I wrote the first Jorie story, Jorie and the Magic Stones because it had frolicked and played around in my head for a long time, and I just had to put it down into the pages of a book.  Being an ‘only child’ or ‘fille unique’, as the French would say, I think I understood Jorie feeling so alone, and her subsequent reaching out to her best friend Rufus, a young boy, also very much alone.  Further,  the appeal of enchanted cities below a deep body of water, had always intrigued me since I was a young child.

I believe this story, the first in the trilogy, teaches children about those noble attributes of friendship, courage, loyalty, and standing up for what you believe in, in a unique and exciting way.  In spite of all their hair-raising adventures, and somewhat scary exploits, Jorie and Rufus come to realize that good will always vanquish evil… it is the stronger of the two in the final analysis, and these two extraordinary children still manage to separate their ‘magical world’ beneath the Tarn, from the world of reality, with their grandfather and great aunt in the world above the Tarn.  Perhaps this book will fire up our children, and create more desire to read… creating more understanding, and more learning. This is the author’s profound wish… and hope.

About the Book: Jorie and the Magic Stones is the first book in a new chapter book series by A. H. Richardson. Children everywhere will love this adventurous fantasy of Jorie and Rufus, two orphans from very different walks of life, who meet by chance, find a mystic book with four magical Druidic words that provide the key to an astonishing adventure that will plunge them, quite (literally) into another world beneath the dark waters of the Tarn.

When Marjorie went to live with her frosty maiden aunt, she couldn’t imagine the adventures she would have with dragons — good and bad — and all the strange creatures that live in a mysterious land beneath the Tarn. The spunky 9-year-old redhead forges an unlikely friendship with an insecure young boy named Rufus who lives with his crusty grandfather next door. When Jorie — for that is what she prefers to be called — finds a dusty ancient book about dragons, she learns four strange words that will send the two of them into a mysterious land beneath the Tarn, riddled with enchantment and danger. Hungry for adventure, the children take the plunge, quite literally, and find themselves in the magic land of Cabrynthius.

Upon meeting the good dragon, the Great Grootmonya, Jorie and Rufus are given a quest to find the three Stones of Maalog — stones of enormous power — and return them to their rightful place in Cabrynthius. Their mission is neither easy nor safe, and is peppered with perils in the form of the evil black half-dragon who rules the shadowy side of the land. They have to deal with a wicked and greedy professor, the tragic daughter of the bad dragon, caves of fire, rocky mountainous climbs, and a deadly poisonous butterfly.

Jorie must rely on her wits and courage to win the day? Can she do this? Can she find all three Stones? Can she save Rufus when disaster befalls him? Can she emerge victorious? She and Rufus have some hair-raising challenges, in which they learn valuable lessons about loyalty, bravery, and friendship.

About the Author: A.H. Richardson was born in London England and is the daughter of famous pianist and composer Clive Richardson. She studied drama and acting at the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art. She was an actress, a musician, a painter and sculptor, and now an author.

She published her first book, Jorie and the Magic Stones, in December 2014, and has written a sequel to it titled Jorie and the Gold Key at the request of those who loved the first ‘Jorie’ story. She is currently working on the third book in the series.

She is also the author of Murder in Little Shendon, a thriller murder mystery which takes place in a quaint little village in England after World War Two, and introduces two sleuths, Sir Victor Hazlitt and his sidekick,  Beresford Brandon, a noted Shakespearian actor. She has more ‘who-dun-its’ planned for this clever and interesting duo… watch for them!

A.H. Richardson lives happily in East Tennessee, her adopted state, and has three sons, three grandchildren, and two pugs. She speaks four languages and loves to do voiceovers. She plans on writing many more books and hopes to delight her readers further with her British twist, which all her books have.

To learn more, go to https://ahrichardson.com/

Thank you for reminding us about the importance of imagination!

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