A REAL BEST FRIEND (website updated, story removed) http://www.hungermtn.org/a-real-best-friend/
BOUNCY Highlights Hello, volume 3, number 6
ALL GONE Highlights Hello, volume 3, number 8
Reach Out and Read mural detail (mural photo at SCBWI author page)
FUN FACTS:
Working in a Yellowstone National Park cafe, Linnea greeted and sat families for lunch after Old Faithful Geyser eruptions, i.e., “geyser rushes.”
At John Day Fossil Beds National Monument in 2017, Linnea answered questions from families as a volunteer-in-parks before a total solar eclipse.
Since the age of eight years, Linnea has collected unusual rocks. However, it was only recently that she realized this occasional activity is called “rockhounding.” In 2024, she published two hand-drawn maps to rockhounding sites in a journal.
On a road trip to Grand Canyon National Park, Linnea hiked to the bottom of the canyon and stayed at Phantom Ranch overnight before hiking out the next day.
Two times, years apart, Linnea walked across Abbey Road at the zebra crossing frequented by The Beatles and other musicians on the way to record music in London’s famous Abbey Road Studio.
On a fabulous adventure to the Lake District of England, Linnea visited Beatrix Potter’s house and gardens. She looked for Petter Rabbit, but he was hiding that day.
In 2007, Linnea painted a mural for the Reach Out and Read program in a pediatric office. It was inspired by bunny and train stories.
In 2018, Linnea just missed witnessing Steamboat Geyser, the world’s tallest geyser, erupt. In 2019, she watched Steamboat Geyser erupt, and heard the steamboat roar, two times!
Linnea continues to visit national park service places with over three hundred so far, including fifty-eight of the sixty-three designated national parks. Her last trip included a boat trip around Glacier Bay National Park in Alaska.
Linnea has visited every state and the District of Columbia at least twice, visited the territories of Puerto Rico and the U. S. Virgin Islands (three main islands) at least once, and traveled to nine different countries.
After attending public schools in Pennsylvania, Illinois, and Washington state, Linnea still reads and learns something new every day. (Her masters degree in early childhood, under educator Lilian Katz, is from the University of Illinois. Experiences in early literacy research took place at the UI Center for the Study of Reading under developmental psychologists Ann Brown and Judy DeLoache; with child development in several Texas Extension counties; in Washington at a UW research preschool with gifted children; and in a Texas bilingual Read Out and Read program.)
Linnea is a PAL member of the Society of Children’s Book Writers & Illustrators.