You are welcome here.

You might be here if you’re someone who cares about others and the world around them. Someone who appreciates attention to detail. Someone who understands and appreciates the value of a physical book. Someone who cares about the environment and all that inhabits it. Someone who buys books to share and inspire others...buys books as gifts or keepsakes. You love nature and animals. You are someone who has children, loves children, or is a child themselves.

My name is Stephanie Turcotte Edenholm. I am a certified CA Naturalist and an educator/writer with a Master’s in Education. My work with inquisitive children moved me to expose the hidden voices in nature to foster change and stewardship through storytelling. I live in Pacific Grove, California, an environment rich in biological diversity.

I have been an educational docent at the Pacific Grove Natural History Museum since moving to the area in 2012. Annually, I guide school groups through the monarch grove, throughout the monarch season, to help them better understand why the monarchs come to this perfect place and many like it along the west coast. I wrote and self-published my first book, The Perfect Place, due to the lack of literature available on this particular topic. I hoped to fill the void and educate a broader audience. Monarch conservation has grown increasingly more important due to the sharp decline in the western population of monarchs in recent years. This is attributed to an array of factors, many of which are challenges created by humans. I hope this book will inspire children and adults alike to protect and preserve the critical habitat of the monarch butterfly. It may be as simple as planting native flowers, sources of nectar, which all pollinators need to thrive and survive!

Many of the school groups, which come to visit the monarchs in the grove each year, come from schools with a predominantly 1st language Spanish speaking population. I felt there was a need to offer a Spanish counterpart to The Perfect Place and make the content available to those students and their families. In 2021, the story was re-edited and professionally translated into Spanish. “El lugar perfecto”, was subsequently released.

Since the inception of The Perfect Place, I knew that I had another story waiting to be told. I alluded to the next book by including a small illustration of a black oystercatcher at the end of the monarch story. This image was there to remind me to bring these local coastal birds into awareness. These birds make their home on the rocky coasts of California where I live. They, like the western migrating monarchs, are a species of concern. It took a couple of years for the appropriate story to emerge because it required a successful breeding season for the two black oystercatcher pairs I monitor annually. In 2018, the story unfolded before my eyes, as I observed and documented such a rare success.

Writing a book is not an easy process, especially when you are self-publishing and the illustrations are equally as important as the text. And so began the challenge of getting the words and the illustrations just right, not just once but twice over the course of multiple years.

And as I continue to work on Bloy Gets His Wings, another story grew in my heart. The Tiny Dog with the Huge Heart was born out of my connection with Peace of Mind Dog Rescue (POMDR), a non-profit located on the Monterey Peninsula on the central coast of California. POMDR has story after story of dogs and people which their organization has helped over the years. I wanted to find a way to contribute beyond becoming a foster, something that would keep giving. The fun part about this project is that I found a way to create the images using technology, applying a phone app to photographs I assimilated from real-life Bernie’s parents. This little dog, Bernie, which became a sort of healing ambassador to every foster dog that passed through the couple’s home, amazed me. I knew that Bernie’s story would touch people even long after he passed. He would be the one to help me help POMDR.

And already more ideas and books are waiting for their turn.