Whitney Moran
author
“We are lighthouses for brilliant ideas, lost in the dark, searching for an audience.”
Available now!
I Want to Build a Seahouse
illustrated by Josée Bisaillon
(Nimbus Publishing, May 2023)
ABOUT THE BOOK
In a lighthouse on the sea lives a young girl who is about to become a big sister. Trouble is, she doesn’t want a little sister. With her peaceful life disrupted, the girl’s only option is to run away—and build her very own seahouse! With a foghorn for a doorbell and a fence of fishing rope, windows made of sea glass, buoys to help it float — and a pirate flag for safety (of course), she’ll have everything she needs.
The girl imagines all of the adventures she’ll have, talking parrot in tow: harvesting seaweed from her garden; telling ghost stories to merfolk; charting the tides and sailing by moonlight. But there’s a loneliness that creeps in whenever she thinks of her family back on land. And there’s those pesky stormy seas to consider…
A poetic ode to the childhood yearning for freedom, sprinkled with new-sibling jealousy, the debut picture book by editor Whitney Moran, whimsically illustrated with a magnificent coastal palette by award-winning artist Josée Bisaillon, is a heartfelt story of family and independence, and a celebration of imagination and the natural world.
a peek inside!
About Whitney
Whitney Moran has always lived by the sea, and never too far away from a lighthouse. She is the managing editor of Nimbus Publishing and Vagrant Press in Kjipuktuk (Halifax, Nova Scotia) and makes her home in a seahouse in West Dover with her partner and their Old English Sheepdog.
Whitney’s favourite kinds of books feature the following things:
the ocean
fairy tale or folklore elements
complicated relationships
storms
colourful or poetic language
strange words
abandoned buildings and places
mythological creatures & unexplained happenings
brave and intrepid kids!
PHILOSOPHYWhitney believes that children’s books are for everyone, and that tapping into our childlike wonder and awe is the best way to open ourselves up to the power—and possibilities—of reading.
SERVICESDo you want to work together?
Whitney is available for the following:
Classroom visits (through the Writers’ Federation of Nova Scotia Writers in the Schools program). Available for grades primary to two.
Audiobook narration
Workshops & presentations for all ages and group sizes
Literary grant jurying
“Children’s fiction…offers to help us refind things we may not even know we have lost.”
Katherine Rundell