About Us
The Author
F.A. Harbor (Her/She/Me/I)
Dr. Seuss stories were a huge influence in F.A. Harbor’s childhood years. She loved the rhyming words, looking at the pictures in books and daydreaming. As she got older, she enjoyed short stories, especially the Readers’ Digest Volumes of Short Stories. She loved to read and reread those fictional stories, yet Dr. Seuss still holds first place in her heart for all things fantastical!
F.A. Harbor got married 33 years ago. She always knew that she would get married, but never knew what she wanted to do as a career. She attended colleges, achieving an A.A. in Liberal Arts, and an A.S. in Communication Disorders. She has a Certification as a SPA (Speech Pathology Assistant). In addition, the author is certified as an Assistant Teacher in Early Childhood Development, and has worked in a school district for 18 years with preschoolers with speech/language disorders and delays. She has also worked with children with ASD (Autism Spectrum Disorders), facilitating their behaviors in after school settings.
As a mother of four boys, the author became inspired by her sons and their many life stages. The fussiness of toddlers with picky eating habits, the trauma of first haircuts and the choking hazards of rogue marbles left out by the older boys was The Joy of Learning How to Keep Children Alive… (not a book yet!) Beyond those basic life skills (literally ‘life’ skills), going to the parks, digging tunnels in the sand and getting dirty making mud pies was just as much fun for the author as it was for the boys.
When her sons entered school, they joined Cub Scouts and explored hiking trails (made sure to bring a noise maker to scare off mountain lions), learned to pitch tents for camping (she was never told about the swarms of mosquitoes at dusk; run like the wind into your tent and zip it fast!!) and pounded out designs on leather fobs (dangerous job on a fob!). Enjoying these times in their young lives gave her the inspiration for ‘oodles’ more stories. Did she not mention the myriads of pets from garden lizards, alligator lizards (they bite), frogs from streams (gotta be fast to catch ‘em), snakes, iguanas and bearded dragons? Putting worms on hooks for fishing (ugh!) was the hardest to learn (there is a technique of avoiding the worm guts). There were hamsters (had funerals and burials in the garden), cats (one litter of 7 kittens for “education purposes”; had the boys and a neighbor (cat midwife) help with birthing), aquariums filled with fish (there is a learning curve to keeping the fish alive) and many dogs throughout childhood. You get the idea.
All in all, the preschool age was the most enlightening for the author. It was THE ‘Age of Creating’. The boys played with their superhero toys, building complex worlds of good vs. evil. Being very linear, F.A. Harbor learned a lot about pretending from her sons. They became her sources of inspiration, from eating food, to drawing pictures and singing songs in the car. So it began 25 years ago that F.A. Harbor penned her first ‘trilogy’ of Oodles books (hint #2: stay tuned for future books). The author survived childhood exploits, and luckily, so did her four amazing sons.
F.A. Harbor has endeavored to teach young children an awareness of themselves and their world, and help them to interact with others in appropriate ways. She, in turn, has learned to see the world through their eyes, opening up the “mind of the inner child” within herself. Recalling their youthful ideas, the author remembers when life was simpler. As they dreamed, she dared to dream with them. Most importantly, she learned how to make believe.
The Artist
Yes, the author Felicia and I are husband and wife and we’ve been married for 33 years. We have 4 grown boys; Nathan, Brandon, Jordan, and Evan, who are mostly responsible for the stories and picture books we’re introducing to you through our website… OodleMeThis.com.
I guess you can say I knew I wanted to be an artist from a very young age (5 years old). It wasn’t your typical “when I grow up, I want to be”… I mean, I really knew I wanted to be an artist. As I got older, my life took a different direction as life sometimes does. That grand design didn’t play out as I expected, but I’m at peace with it.
I have no formal training or education in illustration or design. I was blessed with a talent and ability, and I developed my own style and technique through observation and passion.
There were a few people that I considered mentors in my life, three of whom are worth mentioning here. One person in particular was my high school art teacher, Mr. Robert Hill. Although he never succeeded at getting me to do an “assigned class project”, he understood my free spirit better than any other person I’ve known. Another person who encouraged my passion was my Aunt Eleanor who secretly provided me with paints, sketch pads, pens, markers, etc. That’s a story for another day… Lol.
The third person who made a huge impact on my art was Mr. Charles M. Shultz. At 5 years old, the first thing I ever drew was a Peanuts cartoon strip from the Sunday Paper. I was hooked! I think it was at that time that my mother knew I could draw better than an average 5 year old. It wasn’t just the Peanuts characters that intrigued me, but the composition and perspective of his work that inspired me most. You might see some Shultz in these illustrations.
I hope you find some inspiration in my work. My desire is to take you back to a time, when… wait for it… “Oodles” of ideas filled your imagination.
Thank you for reading.
Warm Regards, Ken Golemo