About

The Author

Author Mary Jeswald was a Chemistry and Math teacher before becoming a technical writer and editor. She is now retired.

She writes children’s stories that appeal to both children and adults, believing that children learn the love of reading by experiencing the enjoyment of the adults who read to them. Mary used her experience as a mother of two and a grandmother of three to write If Grandpas Grew Like Trees.

Mary lives in Colorado with her husband, Thomas, and four cats.

Fun Facts About Mary

Mary and her family have been involved in kitten and cat rescue and fostering for decades.

If Grandpas Grew Like Trees includes several characters based on family members. Photos were sent to Antonia Pylaeva, the illustrator, for use in her art in the book. Mary is the model for Grandma. Illustrations of Anthony and Grandpa show a family resemblance to several other relatives.
Houdini the cat and Radar the German Shepherd were beloved pets of the Jeswald family.

In the story, Anthony wears a green baseball cap with a big red “A.” When the book was in preparation on a storyboard, Mary’s grandson, Devlin, was visiting and looking at the illustrations. He exclaimed, “Hey! Is that my cap?” It was.

The Illustrator

Antonia Pylaeva is an artist who lives in Russia with her husband, Nikolas, and their three children. They are a very creative family. Nikolas writes poems and fairy tales for children.

After studying in Saint Petersburg, Russia, Antonia lived in Cyprus, Italy, and Thailand. See more of Antonia’s artwork at her website.

Fun Facts About Antonia

With more than twenty years of experience with various media and styles, Antonia was nevertheless challenged by the book’s combination of realistic graphics and a child’s images.

Antonia writes, “It turned out to be interesting to draw Anthony’s drawings. I had to kind of ‘forget how to draw,’ but at the same time it was very difficult!” (to draw like an untrained child).

The Origins of Orangefoot Publishing

OrangeFoot Publishing was started in 2004 in Pittsburgh, PA. I created this publishing company to self-publish the first children’s book I wrote: The Crazy Adventure of Nicholas Mouse.

Self-publishing was more complicated and less respected in 2004 than it is now. Self-publishing that book in 2004 required many hours of research to determine how to accomplish each step of the process. Now, there are numerous articles, books and videos that give detailed descriptions of the publishing process. There are also numerous businesses, organizations, and consultants that will work with authors to make the publishing process simplified.

The logo for OrangeFoot Publishing was created by a technical writer coworker in Pittsburgh, who was also an artist and illustrator. She also created the illustrations for The Crazy Adventure of Nicholas Mouse.

The logo for OrangeFoot Publishing was based on one of our cats, whose name was Yoyo. She was a tortoiseshell cat with three black feet and one orange foot. Yoyo was a small cat, about three-fourths the size of the average adult, short-haired, domestic American cat. I gave a photo of Yoyo to my coworker. She was not a cat person but created an excellent logo for OrangeFoot Publishing and I paid her for her work

We adopted Yoyo from a friend, who was another technical writer colleague of mine in Pittsburgh. Yoyo had a sweet personality, but like many torties, she was a little aloof.

Houdini was Yoyo’s best friend, and after we adopted Houdini from my technical writer friend, she told me that Yoyo was simply lost without Houdini and would we consider adopting Yoyo, too.

We agreed and watched the two of them continue their friendship in our household. They chased each other up and down the stairs and in and out of the doors to the back deck.

Houdini was bigger than Yoyo and he sometimes got the better of her. When that happened, Yoyo would dash into one of her secret napping spots. Houdini would give up the chase, get bored, and take a nap, too.