So I went to the school in Durham, Ontario where he was teaching. Durham is a little farm town about an hour away from where I live.

While I was there I tried making up some new stories. One of the kids who asked to be in a story was named Stephanie. She had a ponytail coming right out of the top of her head; so I made up a ponytail story for her.

I don’t even remember what other stories I made up that day, but the class really liked the Ponytail story and I decided it was a good one.

When I got home I wrote it down and sent a copy to Stephanie. I told her that it might be a book someday and asked her to send me her picture.

Her teacher, Mrs. Munro, gave her the letter and Stephanie sent me a picture of herself with a ponytail coming right out of the top of her head.

By 1996 the Ponytail story was getting really good. I had found that it even worked when I told it in High Schools and Universities and I decided to make it into a book.

Michael Martchenko drew the pictures for the book. I surprised Stephanie by just showing up one day at her school to give her copies of Stephanie’s Ponytail.

She said, “Never do that again. When I got called to the principals office I thought I was in trouble!”