A new series of books highlighting Pelee Island is on the horizon, with an expected eight-book series entitled Pelee Island Fantastical Stories.
Toronto native — and summer Pelee Island resident — Glenn Tomlinson has come up with the series based on the whimsical stories he tells his seven grandchildren when they visit the island.
Tomlinson often found himself telling the kids stories about the island and making up tales and characters as they hiked through the woods or rode the ferry across from the mainland.
“On one of the ferry rides over one day I was telling the kids a story,” he says. “My wife said, why don’t you write these down. And so I did.”
Tomlinson’s family has been coming to the island for a few years now and they loved it so much the first time they visited that they bought “a little slice” for themselves.
Armed with his imagination, he’s created characters like Pelee Pete, the Friendly but Stinky Little Ogre and Lighthouse Larry.
Of course, his grandchildren are featured as the heroes in the stories, although he doesn’t identify them by name so that other kids can imagine themselves in the stories.
Once he had a few stories written down, Tomlinson got going with the business of self-publishing his books — but first he had to find an illustrator.
Pelee Island business owner Melissa Wiper recommended a platform called Upwork, an online freelancing site where he could find exactly what he was looking for.
And he did.
“I connected with a young lady out of Winnipeg and told her my vision,” he said. “I told her that if she could draw me an ogre and my grandchildren liked it, she was hired.”
The rest is history. The grandkids loved the ogre drawn by the illustrator known as Heidi Jean and she has followed Glenn’s ideas perfectly.
And many of his books will feature actual Pelee Island history and landmarks.
Tomlinson’s first two books — Pelee Pete the Friendly But Stinky Little Ogre and Lighthouse Larry and the Locked Door – are now available on Amazon and will soon be available on Pelee Island.
Fishpoint Freya and the Fearsome Undercurrent will be released later this spring, while Ditchwater Daisy and the Lake Erie Seiche, Willy the Watersnake and the Misunderstanding, Vauncey Grey, The Fox Who Wanted to Change His Colour, and Denzil Dashwood and the Carolinian Canopy are all in the works and will be released in order.
And even though he wasn’t born and raised here, he has some family ties to this area — and in particular, Point Pelee.
“I have connections dating back 200 years,” he says. “My fourth great-grandfather, William Abbott, first settled on the Point in 1828.”
And if you check the cover of the books, you’ll see that Tomlinson writes his series under the pen-name N. Nosnilmot — his name spelled backwards.
Glenn Tomlinson with his first two books.
Photo submitted
