My dear friends and readers,

Maybe you are thinking, now that the book “Who stole the berries?” is done and for sale, that I have a lot of free time. Well, things are quite the opposite at the moment. Here a little update on what’s going on with the Bucklethorn Forest book series.

I am currently working three different projects, all connected to the book series “The Adventures of Bucklethorn Forest”.

My first project is still my first book “Who stole the berries?”. I am busy with marketing strategies. I have made flyers, that I am hanging up in kindergartens, schools and libraries. Middle of February I will be holding my first open book reading. I am researching other marketing ideas and ways of getting my book established.

My second project is translating the book “Who stole the berries?”. I’ve had many requests for it to be translated into German. For the German version of the book, I am currently looking for a publisher. This is very time consuming.

My third project is the most fun for me. I am very excited to announce the second book is already in progress. The story is written and the illustrations are slowly coming together. I am hoping to publish it in 2016.

If you have some time on your hands, then check out the new coloring sheets you can download for free.

Stay tuned for more news and adventures of Bucklethorn Forest.

My dear friends and readers,

Thank you so much for all your support, help spreading the word and getting my book out there.
It’s been some exciting weeks learning a lot of new things especially about marketing.
Unfortunately at the moment we are experiencing some start up issues with Amazon. If you tried to order a copy of the book and it read “out of stock” on the Amazon website, then this is impossible. I am working with Amazon on a print on demand basis, so it can’t be out of stock. Please help me sort out these and possible other issues, by letting me know if this happened to you too. Send me either an e-mail or a facebook message. We are in the process of sorting this out.
If this just happened to you, it would help me a lot if you could take a screen shot of the message on Amazon and send it to me. I hope to have this cleared up as soon as possible!
Thank you for baring with me!

My dear friends and readers,

I am very excited to announce that the weeks and months of hard work have finally produced an amazing result:
My paperback book is finished and published!

I am proud to present the 1st edition of “The Adventures of Bucklethorn Forest”, “Who stole the berries?”

Here are the links where you can purchase the paperback book:

Amazon US
Amazon UK
Amazon DE

For any other Amazon site, just search for: “The Adventures of Bucklethorn Forest”, “Who stole the berries?” or “Natasha Steinbeis” and the book will pop up.

If you like the book then, please feel free to share the news and spread the word about it.

This is a dream come true!

My dear friends and readers,

I am very excited to announce that my book, “The Adventures of Bucklethorn Forest” is now available in the Kindle store. You can buy it all across the globe. Here some links to the store, if you’d like to check it out:

Amazon US
Amazon UK
Amazon DE

For any other Amazon site, just search for: “The Adventures of Bucklethorn Forest” and it will lead you straight to the kindle book.

At the moment “The Adventures of Bucklethorn Forest” is only available as an e-book.

I am currently waiting for the proof copy of my book. When it arrives I’ll double check if everything looks just as good on paper as it did on the computer screen. Then the book will be uploaded to the amazon store for all to purchase.

So if you prefer a paper back book as opposed to an e-book, then you’ll need to be a little more patient. It will be coming very soon.

Stay tuned for the next blog post, which will hopefully entail the links to the amazon store with my paper back book.

One of Puck’s best friends is Fiona. She is a snake.

A very opinionated snake. She knows exactly what she wants and most of the time how to get it.

Being a snake means she is cold blooded. That’s why she starts her day by sunbathing to warm up.

Fiona likes to eat insects and small animals like mice, rats and birds. But Fiona’s favorite food are eggs.

When Fiona isn’t hunting for food or sun bathing she is hanging out with her friends.

She loves to explore the forest and go on adventures with them.

Now you know two out of three of the main characters of Bucklethorn Forest. Can you guess what creature the last main character might be?

Stay tuned to find out.

My dear friends and readers,

There is a new feature to explore and try out on my blog.

You can download “Bucklethorn Forest” coloring pages for your children to enjoy. They are free, so print them out and start the fun.

Encourage your children to use their imagination. They can add their own characters, forest life and adventures in every coloring sheet.

Keep checking the blog for new coloring pages. I will be updating them once in a while.

I would love to see your finished masterpieces. Feel free to post photos of them on my facebook page for everyone to admire.

Puck is a porcupine. He lives in Bucklethorn Forest.

His favorite food are berries of all kind. If he can’t find any he will make do with herbs,

leaves, twigs and sometimes even tree bark.

Puck loves to sleep and relax in the sun. He can climb trees, when he’s not feeling too lazy.

Puck is usually friendly, but on occasion if you give him a reason he can get quite grumpy.

None the less Puck is a great and valuable friend to have.

If you want to get to know Puck’s friends, then you’ll have to be a little more patient. Coming soon will be Fiona’s introduction.

Have fun guessing which animal Fiona could be and check out the blog soon, to see if your guess was correct.

Buckthorn is a tree, from which I invented Bucklethorn forest.
It is quite common in Europe, North America, North Asia and Africa. Depending on the type of Buckthorn it bears either black or orange berry-like fruit. The orange berries are edible and very healthy. The black berries are highly toxic!

Bucklethorn forest is an imaginary place set in North America.
It is a thick and well protected area for animals to flourish and find refuge.

Throughout the story I tried to keep the facts as accurate as I could. As a teacher my goal is, for children to enjoy books. If while doing so they learn something, then it’s a double gain.

All the characters and animals in my story, you find in forests of North America.

My characters live in burrows, dens and the trees of Bucklethorn forest, which is rich in food and water.

I’m not spoiling the surprise of who my characters are quite yet.
But it’ll be coming soon, so keep checking my blog if you want to find out.

My dear friends and readers,

Yes, I am entering the world of blogging. Quite ironic I know, since anyone who knows me well would never expect me to voluntarily spend time on a computer. So why am I doing it?

I am following a dream I’ve had for a long time. I am actually going to try and publish my very own book! And if it all works out, a book series!

I wrote this story using characters, that I could see myself illustrating. I based the story in a forest, since I love drawing trees and anything else you might find in a forest.

I am very proud and excited to announce that the story is written and basically finished. At the moment I am handing it around for proofreading.

My awesome husband has shown me how to use a computer program that makes it easier to finish and detail the illustrations better.

My evenings are spent with playing around on the computer creating the pictures for the book. I often realize I am missing something small or would like to add something else into the picture. Then I move to my desk and draw up a new item.

Stay tuned for some more posts on how I am creating the illustrations.

I hope I can encourage some of you to do the same as I am doing – tackle your dream to make it happen!