The Twins Strike Back by Valerie Flournoy

And to Kayla’s shock it wasn’t even anatomically correct. Her mother made the octopus out of an old round pillow. But when Kayla opened the box, there wasn’t a real octopus in it at all. So, on her birthday, to her delight, her mother said she would be getting an octopus. She thought and she thought and decided that an octopus would be the perfect pet. All she wanted for her birthday was a pet. Once upon a time there was a little girl named Kayla. I’d like to give you two words and have you give me a story: octopus and ten! There were stories everywhere – just in the ordinary things we did. I’d have experiences at school and that would become a story (like writing 100 times, ‘The way I behave in school reflects my home training), Church, the playground, going shopping with my aunt at Marshall Field’s.

I’d stop by a neighbor’s house on the way to the grocery store for my mother and entertain them with Scott family life. When I was 9, most of my stories were about my family and the things that happened in our home. What types of stories did you tell when you were 9 years old? Who was your audience? I got hooked on making money and stayed in the field for 40+ years. I went to work for IBM for what I thought would be a couple years before heading to med school. But my love for stories and storytelling has been around much longer than my interest in IT. I started out telling stories when I was 9 years old – and never thought I’d write a book.

As a former IT executive, what made you decide to write children’s books?

The Twins Strike Back by Valerie Flournoy