If you'd rather place an order by talking to one of our cheerful order desk clerks, please call 1-888-232-4444 (USA and Canada only) or 250-383-6864. From Europe, ring our UK order desk clerk at local rate number 0845 230 9601 (UK only) or 44 (0)1865 722 113.

Sweet Pea The Donkey's Mansion Adventures

by Myles, Scarlett and Preston Gallagher

36 pages; Saddle stitched; catalogue #04-2437; ISBN 1-4120-4629-7; US$20.00, C$22.00, EUR16.50, £11.50

Join Sweet Pea the donkey in another book of adventures that she encounters in her daily life with her friends. She works at her candy shop, goes traveling, visits the museum and much, much more.

Read more!

About the Book      About the Author      Excerpts and Articles      Catalogue Information

About the Book

Sweet Pea is a happy and silly donkey that encounters many adventures in her daily routine. She works at her candy shop and has dear friends. They get together and do numerous things and go many places. They have an Amazon adventure, they go to the baseball game and make many trips to their local museum.

Sweet Pea's adventures appeal to children of all ages. Whether the children are advanced readers reading alone or if they are small children being read to, they are guaranteed to be intrigued by the daily life adventures of Sweet Pea the donkey.

The story is written by three children and the illustrations are completed by a child. The book is sure to be a joy for other children to appreciate. The story and illustrations intrigue the mind and help the child envision the situation as the story unfolds.

---

About the Author

The authors are three children who actually own and dearly love the real Sweet Pea the donkey. They also own several of the other pet characters in the second book in the series. They live with their parents on a ranch in southern Arizona with Sweet Pea and a variety of pets. The authors are currently working on the third book in the series of adventures.

---

Excerpts and Articles

Kids have braying rights, with second book about Sweet Pea the donkey

By Rhonda Bodfield Bloom
ARIZONA DAILY STAR

Sweet Pea the donkey is spoiled. Her favorite pastime is eating.

She has a ranch named after her.

And she is the star of her own adventure series.

Now, the 13-year-old donkey doesn't really go to the fair, bake a cake with carrots and sugar cubes, or head to Horse Depot to remodel her barn. The three Gallagher children who wrote her stories - Myles, 12, Scarlett, 10, and Preston, 8 - took some literary license when they penned "The Adventures of Sweet Pea the Donkey" (Trafford, $13.95 paperback) as a summer project. The book came out in print last April, and the second in their series, "Sweet Pea the Donkey's Mansion Adventures" is out this month.

The trio didn't set out to become authors.

Growing up in an Air Force family, the Gallagher kids - the family includes the youngest, Olivia, 6 - moved around quite a bit. In 2001, they found themselves in a 1,300-square-foot base home in California. With space a little tight, they would spend a lot of time at the boarding stables, playing with their new donkey and with other kids who owned horses. Driving home, they would make up stories. Their mother, Gwenyth, charmed, told them to write the stories down.

So they did. The stories took a year to complete, with Scarlett doing the illustrations. And then they wanted to see what it would look like as a book.

"They begged," confirmed their mother, a former veterinary technician who now schools the children at home. She eventually found an on-demand publisher. After the book came out, the siblings started doing promotions, from speaking to classrooms to having a booth at the Los Angeles Times Festival of Books, where they caught a glimpse of Maria Shriver. They did a book- signing in California where they got to meet Jameson Parker, a former actor and the writer of "An Accidental Cowboy."

The family moved to Tucson in September and promptly dubbed their place in Picture Rocks, surrounded by horse property and accessible by a dirt road, "The Brayer Ranch."

Sweet Pea has lots of company, including three llamas; a miniature donkey and her brand-new baby; a rooster; five chickens; a duck; four cats; a dog; a cockatiel; and a pygmy goat who thinks she's a Chihuahua and rides in the car with the family, instead of in the livestock trailer with everyone else.

The Gallaghers have a growing scrapbook of press clippings and cards from students who have read their book, some of whom had plot suggestions. Most drew pictures of Sweet Pea wearing polka dots, her favorite pattern.

Myles, who would like to be an architect or a large-animal veterinarian, said the hardest part of writing the book was the editing. Scarlett, who wants to be a small-animal vet, said it was drawing everything just perfect - and waiting for the book to be published. Preston, who wants to shoe horses or be a weatherman, said none of it was hard. The brothers agree with Scarlett about the best part: "The best thing is seeing your name on a book and other kids carrying it."

So how many more adventures will Sweet Pea have?

Well, Myles said, they originally envisioned a series of seven books. "But that's a lot of books to write," he admits.

Still, they know there's no rush. Most authors of children's books are, after all, adults.

---

Catalogue Information

---