Pigeon is eleven, homeless, and now an orphan. Alone and scared, he seeks to find a new family. But the past he barely remembers comes back to haunt him, endangering his newly-found friends, the Kikkert Family. Fortunately, the Kikkerts want to adopt Pigeon even if he is wanted by strange para-military DNA warriors. As they race through San Francisco to save each other, the true nature of Pigeon’s birth is revealed as well as the secret identity of Madame Toad—the matriarch of the Kikkert Family.
What does is mean to be human? What does it take to be a family? Pigeon is willing to risk his life to learn and to love.
Targeted Age Group:: Middle School/High School
What Inspired You to Write Your Book?
I wanted to write a story in which a grandmother can kick a** and act as a super hero. And I wanted to show that even the most vulnerable in our society — a homeless kid — can rise above their circumstances and demand love.
I also wanted to create a fully-illustrated story. Pigeon has dozens of black and white ink illustrations. It was fun to write and illustrate the book.
How is writing SciFi different from other genres?
There is freedom to speculate on the near and far future. Writing SciFi is exhilarating — what happens next? The “science” in science fiction sets limits on the story. I love science and studied it all my life, writing about science in a context of a story makes it more assessable to a wide audience of readers. I read science fiction voraciously as kid and still do now, I hope readers who chance on my stories will enjoy the subject matter as much as I do.
How Did You Come up With Your Characters?
Pigeon is a young boy who lives on the streets and wakes up one day to find his mother dead. In my mind’s eye, I saw and felt the scene of a little child discovering an amazing super power just as he loses everything he had in the world. The story went from the moment of that vision. I started with just several sentences jutted down in my notebook. After a few months, I picked up the idea and started writing the story.
Book Sample
The first two chapters (with illustrations) are hosted on my blog: http://www.interfaces.com/blog/pigeon-2/
About the Author:
Olga Werby, Ed.D., has a Doctorate from U.C. Berkeley with a focus on designing online learning experiences. She received a Master’s degree in Education of Math, Science, and Technology from U.C. Berkeley and a B.A. degree in Mathematics and Astrophysics from Columbia University. She has been creating computer-based projects since 1981 with organizations such as NASA (where she worked on the Pioneer Venus project), Addison-Wesley, and the Princeton Review. Olga works with her husband, Christopher Werby, at their company Pipsqueak Productions LLC in San Francisco. Alone or with her partner, she writes science fiction stories.
Links to Purchase Print Books
Link to Buy Pigeon Print Edition at Amazon
Links to Purchase eBooks
Link To Buy Pigeon On Amazon
Leave a Reply