The Pastel Planet: A Manitoulin Island Adventure

This wonderfully imaginative story, so delightfully illustrated in pastels, incorporates many beautiful details and memories, both fact and fiction, to take the young reader on a trip of a lifetime. The author cleverly weaves her own lifelong memories, of a childhood spent on Manitoulin, with this freshwater island's colourful scenery, geography and First Nations language. Overcoming the blending of their two families, peer pressure, and bullying, Katie and Caleb finally enjoy an adventure full of holiday magic that is beyond their wildest dreams.
Margaret Bird
Author, Publisher,
Photographer & Musician

Manitoulin, a triangular-shaped island in the Great Lakes, is a place where magic can happen. Two children from different families, Caleb Larkin and Katie Lambert, are forced to live together when their parents marry. They do not like each other, but the outer space adventure they share on a holiday on the Island changes that. A flying saucer lands on the shores of Lake Mindemoya, and they are invited aboard. They can't wait to return to school in the Fall to tell their classmates the tale of Terra Turquoise.