Pearl’s Mid-Week Gracie Press Newsletter for Wednesday June 11,2025
Even When Turmoil Comes, We Turn Tragedy into Triumph!
The Turmoil…
Lately Pearl and I have had more than our share of turmoil! That’s turmoil with a capital “T” and that rhymes with “C” and that stand for “Catch the Crooks!”
First The Tragedy…
We have shared with some of our readers that I (John) had my identity stolen. It was totally my own fault and recovering has been a challenge. And even though we couldn’t imagine anyone ever stealing a chicken’s identity, this whole business still bothered Pearl. It was the upsetting of my own routine has really upset Pearl. She has her own routine for eating, playing and doing all of her other chicken activities. Quite honestly, the disruption to Pearl’s happy routine has been the greatest burden for me to carry. Thinking that we could lose our house and our yard created stress that was profound. Our yard is where we rest and relax and enjoy the songbirds. It’s where Gracie, Bessie, Emily, Amelia, and Blanche are buried under the camellias and where we remember them.
BUT, as Pearl and I prayed together, “The Lord is My Shepherd” (me) and “The Great Gardener’s Son is My Shepherd” (Pearl), we put our heads together and decided that we could turn all of this trial and testing into something triumphant! You might call it a kind of recovery!
The Triumph…
We decided to look back at things we treasured and then decided to work on some mystery stories together. There would be “Pearl Drew” for mostly young girls and “The Hardy Hens” for anyone—girl or boy, young or old. Pearl liked posing as a detective like “Nancy Drew” but she liked even more being a character in “The Hardy Hens” to help her remember her sister Blanche. (They didn’t have to be roosters to be like The Hardy Boys.) Surely this project would lift her spirits in ways that dried meal worms never could!
When growing up, Nancy Drew Mysteries had been a reading passion for my sister, and I had equally enjoyed The Hardy Boys. For anyone interested in a little history, The Hardy Boys were introduced in 1927 and Nancy Drew was introduced in 1930. Since my house was built in 1920, I imagined a young boy who moved into this house when he was a very young, yet almost old enough to read about The Hardy Boys. Perhaps he would grow up to raise chickens in his own backyard garden and write stories about two of them like Blanche and Pearl.
It all just seemed to fit together so nicely, and that’s how things work out in this world of our backyard garden.
In the paired illustrations above of The Hardy Hens (Pearl and Blanche), you can see them in shades of gray and also in color. Pearl said to me, “We have GOT to do this! Aim for the Grandmas and Grandpas because they love to give books as gifts and share books as time together with their grandchildren. They are the ones who might have grown up on Nancy Drew and The Hardy Boys. We can tell equally compelling mysteries for young readers today—except our mysteries will be about chickens and their backyard songbird friends!!! Absolutely everybody everywhere loves chickens! There are more chickens than people in the world!” (I did check that fact, and Pearl was correct! When I meet someone and they find out I have chickens in my backyard, almost everybody I meet has a chicken story from when they were little to tell me. In fact, chickens and children go together and more than just on the page of a dictionary! I have a picture of my own young niece visiting with a chicken, and she looks so happy and excited!)
Chickens are THE BEST! And Pearl with Blanche in a book again will be THE BEST EVER!!!
We are not starting a new Substack for this project. Instead, we will share our work right here in The GraciePress Newsletter! In fact right here is the first and so far only place that we have told anyone what we are working on!
We Just Gotta Ask…
We serious rely on reader input! So on to the polls!
Honestly, if you think we are on the wrong track, we’d like to know it now and pull back on this. It’s not good to say we are going to do something and then not do it. We also have a lot of projects going on right now, but it used to not be like this. It used to be no more than two or three illustrations with stories per week. That was it until it felt right to compile everything into a book for publication. Even back then, Pearl was a star!
We ask this since we remain solid in our commitment to include universal values that everyone can appreciate like loyalty and friendship and giving as well as forgiving.
Until Next Time…
Thanks for reading, and we appreciate our family, friends, and fans.
Sincerely,
John and Pearl with fond memories of Gracie, Bessie, Blanche, Emily, and Amelia as well as Ernest (who has his own story to tell one day) and with prayers for all of you, our treasured readers.
I love the idea!