A Novel Idea for Kids

Okay, I admit it. At the tender age of 12, I played with a Ouija board. And I asked all the important questions—who will I marry? Will I travel? Will I be rich? I loved the Ouija board because he didn’t mess around with those “yes” or “no” answers. No, sir; he spelled it right out for me.

But after a while, using the Ouija board wasn’t enough. I turned to Tarot cards, palmistry, astrology, numerology, and ESP. I was hooked. But no one could have predicted what all this would mean in my future.

There were three of us, Pamela, Debbie, and myself. This was back in nineteen sixty…uh…a long time ago. We spent countless hours with divination; our only focus, the future. I guess we were our own Fortune Tellers Club, and I look back on those times with warm nostalgia.

Nostalgia and High Tech
Nostalgia is a funny thing. I always felt it was simply a biological process brought about to keep old people from feeling ripped off. After all, how would old-timers like it if we took their televisions away now and replaced them with old radio programs? But I can’t help but wonder if my circle of friends and I would have learned so much about divination if we’d had computers, Game Boys, and DVD players. I didn’t grow up “high tech,” and with the concept of my book series, Fortune Tellers Club, I suddenly didn’t feel so deprived.

My experiences with my pals and the Ouija board became the premise for a series for children. The Fortune Tellers Club—Juniper, Anne, and Gena, like my friends and I, love divination. But they take it a step further…beyond the average sleepover. They become psychic sleuths, using divination to solve mysteries. A sort of New Age Nancy Drew. And there is no end to the mysteries, adventures, and supernatural events that invade their seventh-grade lives.

Credit to Mom
I have to give some of the credit to my mother, a superstitious woman who always made me kiss the hem of my dress when it turned up, and never allowed me to tell a bad dream before breakfast. There were no umbrellas opening inside her house! She’s the person who bought me my first Ouija board and Tarot cards and encouraged me to use them. She filled my mind with family stories of the supernatural and filled my heart with a desire to write my own. She is as much a part of the Fortune Tellers Club as anyone.

Pamela, Debbie, and I graduated from high school, got married, and went our separate ways. I’ve thought of them often over the years, but more so now that the Fortune Tellers Club is in print. I have two daughters of my own, and you know what? Things never seem to change. When their friends come over, instead of watching videos or listening to CDs, they pull out the Ouija board, the Magic 8-Ball, and the Tarot cards. Like my mother, I tell them the old family stories and encourage them to open their psychic channels. The future will always be the most important thing to 12-year-old girls. And divining it, the most fun.

As for me, I’m having the most fun right now. The future is here at last, and I grabbed it. And I’m sure my young readers are in for a lot of fun in their future, too. How do I know? It’s right here in the cards.