Sam and the Dragon (Paperback)

Sam told his mother, “It really doesn't get cold. That’s just a myth, like dragons and unicorns.” But he soon learns the truth about winter... and dragons. Sam and the Dragon - You’ll never see your furnace the same way again. Sam and the Dragon was selected for the KART Foundation's 2011 Kids Book List.

This is my first children's story.  The inspiration for it came from an incident that happened many years ago when our boys were little.  We lived in a mobile home and every time the furnace turned on it made a lot of noise.  Each time the boys would immediately stop what they were doing and ask "what's that?" and at some point, my wife walked them down to the cabinet that hid the furnace and told them that a dragon lives in there and the noise they hear is just the dragon waking up and blowing warm air to heat the house.  From that time on, whenever the furnace turned on, the boys would say "the dragon's awake" and continue playing.  I wrote the story a few years later. (On my Commodore64.  It was that long ago.)

After publishing my first novel, SEAMS16:A New Home, and while I was working on my second, SEAMS16:Arrival, I thought of that old story and asked my brother, Lanin, if he would be interested in illustrating it.  He agreed, so I dug the story out and looked it over.  I've learned a lot about writing since then, so I gave the story an overhaul before passing it on to Lanin.  I publicly asked for help in naming the story and my niece's daughters (age 3 & 5) suggested "Sam and the Dragon".
Works for me.