Green Island Books page banner - Dave Patterson author info

***Friendly notice: Green Island Pine Valley Stories for Young Readers Books are set in a 'pre-woke' time and place - Ernie and Changel and Cap and Jennifer are all just normal kids as we knew each other in small-town Canada back in the 1950s and 60s and even into the 70s a bit - if this sounds worrisome, perhaps you might consider quietly moving along to something you consider a friendlier, safer space. And Friendly Notice 2: This website was designed to be enjoyed on a proper-sized computer screen with a bit of time to experience it all, not squeezed onto a tiny phone screen while rushing madly through life. It will work on a phone, sort of, but you'll miss some or much of the scenery.******And I suppose Reassuring Notice for the times - the words in these books are ALL mine (Dave) - no AI at all in the words - the pics were conceived and 'written' by me and then realised by DALL.E (the ChatGPT Illustrator) with considerable editing corrections/suggestions by me following (and frustration at times, it has a serious whack-a-mole function that seems to self-initiate randomly). And the point of all this - I am a creative type, as can be seen here and many places, but no talent at all for marketing - so I need someone to do that end of it. Maybe you.


If the books don't interest you, nothing else will matter - so let's get right into it. These stories all take place in a small town called Pine Valley in Prince Edward Island, Canada - or at least the adventures begin there, if soon exploring into other realms such as the night sky or what goes on in a lawn from an ant's perspective or way out in the ocean with a giant Humpback whale or inside a tree examining xylem with a firefly for light or wherever the imagination leads.

Ernie mows the Lawn, coverFirst comes Ernie Mows the Lawn - unexciting sounding, boring even, perhaps, but after Ernie has a mishap with the lawnmower while dreaming about the baseball game he is missing and wakes up the size of an ant, things start to get more interesting, as he tags along with Andrew the Teacher Ant back to Andrew's home, along the way having adventures in worm tunnels, floods, falling grasshoppers, Ernie mows the Lawn, meeting Andrew illustrationand finally red fighting ants - and getting some simple environmental lessons about what happens in a normal lawn and why it is important - and with a load of helpful and beautiful illustrations all along the way.

Ernie mows the Lawn, post-story chat


Changel, Orion and Sirius, cover - and then came Changel, Orion and Sirius - Changel, Orion and Sirius, cygnus chapter bannerthe story of a young girl's adventure in the night sky with the great hunter Orion and his faithful dog Sirius, who are being chased by a very angry Moon Goddess Diana and her flaming bow and arrows. They encounter sky-beings both friendly and not friendly as Orion races to the dawn with Diana hot on their heels. Again, many excellently detailed illustrations (written by Dave and realised by DALL-E) to spark the reader's interest. Changel, Orion and Sirius, orion, sirius, diana




Aquila, coverThen we have Aquila - a story about a brother and sister playing by the seaside of Prince Edward Island Aquila, kids looking at baleen in Aquila's mouthgetting swept out to sea by a riptide, and then rescued by a great Humpback Whale, and their adventures with the whales before the whales get them back home - Aquila being attacked by pilot whales



- and finally Ernie Does Science - Ernie Does Science, cover - a wild ride through a chloroform fog through the River of Life and Hall of Learning and the Chemistry of Life World with Ernie and a great variety of companions, notably Rana the Teacher Frog, Ernie Does Science, first sight of the great Hall of LearningLampyr the Firefly, Bombini the vengful bumblebee, and many others before he finally wakes up back in the classroom - but with a world of understanding of science he never had before. Ernie Does Science, chat of all following end of story



These books are all available on Amazon:


cover of the GI Sampler PDF - and I've also prepared a - GI Stories for Young Readers Sampler - a little PDF you can download for free that gives a chapter of all 4 of the Young Readers books mentioned above - I'm a firm believer in having a chance to sample something before buying.


And if any of that interests you, you can contact me at : siamdave@yahoo.ca


So - if you're still here, I suppose the next thing is a bit about the person who wrote these books - and prepared this little Green Island Stories for Young Readers 'sample' page.

Greetings from Green Island. I am Dave (Patterson, as it says above), and I've been writing pretty much all of my life, as Dave picture, PSU 2007I'll tell you a bit about here. I am Canadian, born in 1950 in Toronto, did a lot of things with my life which you can read about more here, and am currently retired in Thailand where there's no snow to shovel and I can ride my little Honda motorcycle around the beautiful countryside most days (some days the rain is a bit too heavy, but the 'rainy season' is not that serious where I live in northern-central Thailand.) I started the books for young adults stuff back around 1990 when I was living in Prince Edward Island after graduating from UPEI with a biology degree but no biology work (lot more degrees than jobs), when my brother, knowing me to be a writer and needing income streams, told me of a request for kids stories submissions from a publishing company in Halifax where he was working at the time, so I wrote one and sent it in, and it got accepted, and published as Kelly Mows the Lawn. Unfortunately, I had written a book called Ernie Mows the Lawn, which it was always on my mind to resurrect, which now has been done for this new Amazon-Kindle venture, along with a bunch of new (and better, IMO) illustrations from ChatGPT-DALL.E, which renders my 'written pictures' into actual illustrations (not as easy as it sounds, the Chat illustrator can be very obtuse and stubborn, but does now and then come up with some real nice gems).

I then did a second book which I called Changel, Orion and Sirius but they changed to Adventure in the Night Sky, which I fixed up again here to the original ideas with a bunch more nice illustrations from Chat. And 3rd I have Aquila, which I mostly wrote while still in Canada, and then published on my own in 2007 a few years after moving to Thailand, and which is here reissued with, again, some very nice pictures via Chat. And finally Ernie Does Science, another Ernie book from back in the day I was still doing these, and never published in any form until now (but with the best illustrations I think - DALL.E has been improving quite rapidly over the last many months, as has my ability to get what I want out of it)




Green Island, cover - and for a book on the real Green Island, what I consider to be my real magnum opus, the story is here - Green Island - a story about how a true 'social democracy' might be managed by a citizenry comprised of democracy-enabled citizens. It hardly behooves me to brag, but since nobody else will, I have to say this is probably the best book written so far at least in the 2000s. A book that is widely needed, a book that no Canadian publisher or agent was interested in, or dozens of others in the western world. With that kind of 'we are NOT going there!!!!' attitude (strongly anti-capitalist, small publishers reliant on gov money such as in Canada know well not to go outside the lines of the people who give them money) - well, read it and see. The .epub on Smashwords above is free to download, only send some money if you think it worth the read. Inside the boxers waiting for approval from their (inside the box) 'influencers' won't be recommending it - but if you are one of we 'outside the boxers' who likes a good read - I think you'll agree with my assessment. Beautiful inside artwork too - I am a serious creator.

And - one of the great things about living and working in southern Thailand, as I did for almost 30 years, is the closeness of the Andaman Sea and the many beautiful Snorkeling the Beautiful Southern Thailand Andaman Islands' Coral Reefs and Gardens, coverislands there - almost all of which have beautiful coral reefs either directly offshore or easily accessible by longtail boat. And after looking for years for a guide to these islands, with no luck, I decided to do one myself - and published it last year after my retirement gave me time to finish it - which you can read about here, and there should be a picture of the cover somewhere nearby here. It gives details about all of the main southern Thailand Andaman islands, and the reefs around them - and you can have a look on Amazon for more details if this kind of thing interests you. (but a small warning - the last couple of years has seen some serious longterm ocean warming, and my most recent visits to many of these places has seen between some dead coral and almost total devastation of the coral and thus the associated ecosystems - I very much fear I am going to have to redo this book as a retrospective on what it used to be like - but not just now when there is still some hope for recovery)




Dave's Songs, coverAnd - let's see - I have also been a musician since my formative years beginning around 1964, the time the Beatles appeared on the world scene, leading to quite an interesting teen years as the small Ontario town I lived in suddenly saw this nice smart doctor's son turn into a raging Dave's Songs, web page bannerogre of some kind with a couple of inches of hair dangling over his ears and collar - but always a stubborn attitude (my mother's genes I think for a certain 'fuck you' Newfy-Irish attitude (less graphic language of course at the time) coming to the fore along with, I suppose, certain hormones as my girlfriends of the time were also involved, with a good bit of input from my father's genes, as a strong and principled man who was very determined to live his life in his own direction and did), I persevered, and although I and my musical genius friend never did become the Canadian Beatles as youthful dreams planned, we did write a lot of good songs, together and individually, and the music has been with me all of my life, I still play some tunes most days (musical genes also from my mother, who loved music also and was a very good musician from her childhood days, although she was not that thrilled about my musical ambitions, with 'cut your hair and get a job and you'll be happy' being her best advice at the time). Anyway - a selection of the best on my Dave's Songs page - and the book (cover up to the left there) with lead sheets of all of my songs since the 1960s available on Amazon, click here.
.


Dave picture, revolutionatorAND - one more I guess - I did not really start doing web pages, or books for that matter, lo those many years ago, to begin a career as an author - I started the web pages because I thought - actually had been for many years before the idea and do-ability of web pages were even thought of - that our society was heading in some very bad directions, and I thought I had some ideas it would be useful to get into the public discussion - I wanted to be part of that discussion actually. My first foray into 'protest writing' was, I guess, back around 1969, when I was still in high school (good ol Norwood District Highschool, Democracy Study Guide, web page bannernear where I grew up in Hastings on the Trent, near Rice Lake, beautiful town and countryside), and I have no idea what the essay was about now, but there was something going on in the school I thought needed fixing, and wrote this essay called 'Situation Requiring Propitiation' (I was a big reader since I was 4-5 years old, and by high school had a big vocabulary). I suppose I was somewhat influenced by Dylan and Lennon, and the war protests of the later 60s and all like that as well. Anyway - not the place for a long history of that - but my most recent update of my general 'this is how things work now and how to improve them' books is here, Democracy Study Guide, for those so interested.