Helena Long, Author of The Underwater MysteryHelena Long is a mother of five and grandmother of two, who has been reading children’s stories non-stop since she first learned to read! She was also the beneficiary of nightly bedtime story readings from her father for many years. She first started sharing her love of stories at around the age of 12 by telling made-up stories and by reading aloud other authors’ stories to her younger brother, and later to children who were lucky enough to have her for their babysitter when she was a teenager. Throughout her high school and university days, Helena continued to read. As well as her course textbooks, she read biographies, self-help books and modern novels, and always found time throughout the year to escape to a Dr. Seuss book or Arthur Ransom’s Swallows and Amazons series or the Prince Edward Island so eloquently described by Lucy Maud Montgomery. When she started having children of her own, she discovered Robert Muncsh and Stan and Jan Berenstain. Helena’s grown-up children credit much of their own school success to the fact that their mother read to them on a nightly basis. Brenna, the illustrator of The Underwater Mystery and now a successful university student, remembers how greatly her vocabulary improved when she was a pre-teen, listening to her mother read Anne of Green Gables. 
Helena still reads to children regularly as she is currently sharing the stories of pioneer life written by Laura Ingalls with her youngest child, who is in public elementary school. Helena also reads to her young grandchildren (two and three years old)when she has an opportunity and looks forward to sharing many of her old favourites and her own new stories with them as they grow older.Helena Long is proud to call herself a children's author, and says that The Underwater Mystery is only the first of several more books to come. She is also excited about reading or re-reading more children's books and continuing to add book reviews and other information to this website. |
