Welcome

CHRISTOPHER FRANCIS Born in Brisbane, Australia, Christopher was accepted at age 19 into Sheridan College's Animation program before earning a degree in Sociology from McMaster University.

He then enjoyed a two-year adventure overseas working with children, before completing his Bachelor of Education degree at York University. He is now teaching junior and intermediate level students in Burlington, Ontario.

Through Christopher’s experience working with children, he found writing and illustrating to be one of his passions. Currently working on a middle grade series, he recently completed the first four books. He has also created seven other children’s picture books and illustrated children’s novels for independent authors. His works all can be viewed on francisart.com.

Monday, December 22, 2014

Working on a new 'ghostly' story -

A group of kids filtered out of the Archery pit across the road from us. They marched out with their instructor, holding onto their big plastic bows.
Simon looked out at the group and stood up. His hands shook and his face turned white.  “I gotta go.”
“Wait,” I said, grabbing his arm. “What’s the secret?”
I stood up with him and noticed Brandon walking over to us. I forgot he had archery as his first activity.  He strutted over with his shorts halfway down his legs. I hated his walk. He looked like a penguin with a baseball hat. “S’up, Ryan.” he said, pulling the string back on his bow.
I wanted to tell him to get lost, but I knew if I started anything with him, it would ruin the rest of our trip. Brandon was the type of guy that would hold a grudge for weeks. “S’up,” I replied.
Brandon pointed his bow at Simon and pretended to fire an arrow at him.
I half grinned and followed Simon over to the road.
“Whatcha doin?” Brandon dropped his bow down to his side, dragging it in the sand. His weasley little eyes looked at Simon as though he were the scum of the earth.
“We were just heading back to the hill,” I said.
“Got it,” Brandon replied.  He spit at Simon’s feet and tucked the bow under his arm. “Enjoy hanging out with your new friend.”
Brandon’s grudge over Simon had been advertised all over school and online for the past year. Brandon doesn’t really talk about it much with me, but it had something to do with a disagreement with their dad’s. All I know is that Simon is living with a foster family as a result. Brandon makes a point of reminding the guy just how much he hates him. It’s just too bad no one has the guts to tell him to leave the poor kid alone.
That night the grade eights were invited to hangout by the fire pit to roast marshmallows and play trivia games with the instructors. Chaz and a girl instructor named Roxanne hosted the evening entertainment. They had pulled out a sound system and blasted music for the first twenty minutes while we all chatted with each other, taking turns dipping our marshmallows into the flames.
I sat with Brandon, Clay, Markus, Gus and Michael. We located ourselves near the back, of course, and picked pieces of marshmallow from our collection and tossed them at some girls near the front. I knew Brandon liked one of them, but he never wanted to make it known to us.
“Okay folks, before we start our trivia game, I have a cool story I want to share with you.” Chaz turned off the music and stepped through the crowd and sat down next to Michelle and her ex-friend Sarah Livingstone. “Raise your hand if you have heard of Riley Grayson.”
We all shot up our hands and muttered to one another. I think everyone had a different version of what happened to Riley. All I know is that he was here - somewhere, stuck in some sort of limbo.
“This is gonna be lame,” Brandon muttered. He slipped on his earbuds and plugged it into his phone. “Let me know when it’s finished.”
I shook my head and focused back on our lead instructor.
“The year was 2013, on a cold September night,” Chaz began. He wore a green wool sweater and a white baseball hat. “I had just started working here after spending the summer travelling overseas. I couldn’t sleep and decided to go for a walk along the beach. The lake was calm that night, like a black sheet glistening from the full moon. A gray fog hovered just over the surface.  I had lots on my mind that night and needed to get out of those stuffy cabins. After about half an hour, I sat down on that rock over there." He pointed to a large object about fifty yards away. The light from the fire bounced off its jagged edges. He stood up and walked back down to the table and put the microphone down. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath.
     "What's he doing?" Gus whispered beside me.
      "Dunno," I replied.
       Chaz turned to us and continued. "I still get shivers when I think about this next part." He picked up a stick and poked the logs in the fire. "I, I must have been sitting on that rock for about ten minutes when I saw it. At first it looked like a candle floating out in the water, as though someone had placed it on a tiny raft. But when I looked again, I could see something else."
       "What did you see?" Megan Riversley asked. "Was it Riley?"
“I wasn’t sure. At least not at that moment. I had to get closer. So, I grabbed a canoe from the dock and paddled out to the point.”
The fire crackled and snapped as one of the logs shifted under the glowing embers. I looked around at my friends - at the rest of the grade eights - at Simon Partridge. Everyone’s eyes were glued to Chaz.
I tapped Brandon on the arm and waited for him to take his earbuds out. “You might want to listen to this,” I said.
Chaz looked out at the lake and pointed to a cluster of rocks. “That was where I paddled to,” he said. “That was where I saw it - him.” He stepped toward the water. “I reached my paddle out and guided my canoe along the rocks. Under the water, a strange blue light radiated up from below. Around me was nothing but darkness. I couldn’t take my eyes off the light, as though I was in a trance.”
Brandon slowly tucked his earbuds into his pocket. He leaned forward.  
Chaz walked back over to us, stepping through the crowd and sitting back down beside Michelle and Sarah. “I leaned out over the canoe,” he said. “dipping my hand into the warm water. The light grew brighter, shining up through the fog and into the trees around me. For some reason I had trouble breathing, as though the air was being sucked out of my lungs. Below me, a young boy lifted out over the water, pulling himself onto the rocks in front of my canoe. The blue light glowed around him. I knew right away who it was. I looked right into the boy’s eyes. I had seen his picture in the paper, on the news - he was all over the internet. I can still remember his face, like I had a photograph stuck inside my head. There he was, he was real, only...he wasn’t. For the first time, but not the last, I was looking directly at the ghost of Riley Grayson.”

Wednesday, October 22, 2014

Working on my series.....

I've been plugging away for a few years now on my Plight of Timpleville Series.

Here is the summary of the four books -

The Plight of Timpleville dissects the life of Alex Thomas as he struggles to keep his social life intact through his middle-grade years. As he desperately tries to impress Daisy Darlington and avoid the wrath of the school's most feared 8th grader, Alex stumbles through a series of life-changing events. When he finally finds himself staring death in the face, he begins to discover he has a curious gift; a gift that allows him to communicate with the dead.

Sunday, October 19, 2014

The House of Screaming Ridge

Alex, Henry, Mr. Humblewick and the rest of the class all turned to see who it was.
Sitting with her notebook on her lap, drawing a picture of a butterfly, was Madelyn Mayfeather. No one really knew much about her since she transferred to the school a few weeks back. She always liked to keep to herself.
Everyone knew her as Maddy; including Kaylee Cooper, apparently.
“Yes?” Mr. Humblewick tilted his head and rubbed his chin. “What do you mean, yes?”
Maddy lifted her pencil from her page and twirled it between her fingers. She peered out toward the class through the black strands of hair that dangled over her eyes. She paused for a second before looking back down at her drawing. “I mean, yes, because I have heard the screaming. I’ve been on that road at night. It’s not something I wanna remember, you know?”
A buzz of voices began bouncing throughout the classroom. The students and Mr. Humblewick were drawn to Maddy’s words. Her dark brown eyes gazed back up to the curious audience.
“Then, how come no one else has heard it?” Mr. Humblewick asked.
“Because you’re right, the screams aren’t from the road, or from that steep ridge. There was never a stupid old granny going for a walk late at night, looking for some cat. She never fell, she never died. There was no old woman.” The room fell silent as Maddy carefully constructed her next sentence in her head.
Since her arrival, her soft, quiet energy always filled the room with curiosity and intrigue but up until that moment she had never participated in discussions before. Mr. Humblewick continued to play with his chin as he waited for her explanation.
“You know the old house at the top of the hill?” Maddy looked out at the class.
Everyone nodded.
“That house belonged to a young family,” continued Maddy. Her gaze returned to her paper. She stopped twirling her pencil and placed the lead onto her notepad. “That is where the screaming comes from.”
Maddy began to draw a dark figure on her page.
“How do you know this?” Mr. Humblewick asked.
Maddy continued to shade in the figure. Her eyes focused carefully on the curves and lines of the strange shape. “I told you. I’ve been on that road. I’ve been to that house.”
Maddy’s eyes fixated on her drawing. She wanted to get the picture just right. She turned her pencil over and erased part of the figure’s body. Brushing the eraser bits onto the floor, she continued to sketch.
“Go on,” urged Mr. Humblewick.
Maddy glanced up at her teacher. “The young family was hosting a New Year’s Eve party, about a hundred years ago. Back then, there was no town of Timpleville. There were only a few families who lived here. Apparently, everyone was invited.”
Maddy continued to darken the figure on her page.
“But, just before the party was to start, a massive snowstorm hit the area. There was so much snow that no one could drive on the roads.”
Mr. Humblewick sat still in his chair. His gaze was locked on Maddy. “Class, back then, they didn’t have snow plows like they do now, so it would be very difficult to clear away three feet of snow.”
Maddy eyed Mr. Humblewick to make sure he was finished. As she leaned forward slightly in her chair, the students pulled closer. “Because no one was able to come to the New Year’s party, the family decided to celebrate by themselves. There wasn’t any electricity so they had to light candles all over the house.”
“And probably a fire, because they would be really cold, I bet,” added Henry.
“Yup, but what happened next was so horrible, so terrible.”
Mr. Humblewick let go of his chin. “What? What happened?”
Maddy looked around the room and swallowed.
“The house caught fire. One of the candles fell over and the joint just lit up like a gigantic barbecue.”
“Holy cow,” Rudy muttered. “Did they all fry?”
“Rudy!” Mr. Humblewick shook his head.
“No,” Maddy answered, taking a big breath and slowly exhaling. “The kids managed to escape, but they froze to death out in the forest. As for the parents, well . . . .” Maddy stopped. She finished shading her picture and put down her pencil. “I guess you can know now why that road is called ‘Screaming Ridge’”.
“Maddy, I haven’t heard this story before. I don’t recall anyone ever talking about this,” commented Mr. Humblewick. He rubbed his chin and thought for a moment.
“It was a long time ago,” Maddy answered. “This town’s history doesn’t go back that far.”
Mr. Humblewick rubbed his chin again. “How do you know all this? How do you know it’s true and not a myth?”

Maddy lifted up her picture and pointed to the dark figure in her drawing. “Because this person told me.”

Friday, October 3, 2014

Blog Tour

http://ordinarygirlzbookreviews.weebly.com/author-interviews-featured-authors

Saturday, September 27, 2014

Friday, November 15, 2013

Remembering Kaylee Cooper

Kaylee Cooper is certain that Alex will become friends with a ghost this year.  Alex thinks that he is far too old to be listening to a little grade one and encourages Kaylee to stop jeopardizing his important sixth grade social life. Kaylee doesn’t listen and finds awkward ways to spend as much time with Alex as possible, even if it means following him into the boy’s washroom.  Fed up, Alex develops a strategic plan to ultimately get rid of Kaylee Cooper for good.  However, he soon learns about the mysterious legend of Screaming Ridge Road that pulls an unlikely group of friends together, including the girl of his dreams, and the school’s meanest bully.  When they discover the legend is real, and that Kaylee Cooper is at the core of the mystery, Alex stares death in the face and helps save her from an eternal life of misery and confusion.

Respecting Mr. Ravi
How far would you go to teach your school a lesson? If you’re 11 year-old Alex Thomas, you would risk embarrassment, humiliation, and even your life.   When Alex learns how poorly the school’s custodian, Mr. Ravi, is being treated, he comes up with a brilliant plan. With help from his friends, Alex decides to make Mr. Ravi the focus of an upcoming Multi-Cultural Project. Alex’s goal is simple, to get the entire school to start respecting Mr. Ravi. However, as Alex begins his blundering, yet noble journey, he discovers an extraordinary secret, a secret that changes the lives of everyone in his school.