“Too BUSY For Bed!”

The author’s dedication is “To children everywhere: We say that when you are grown, you can be anything you want. / But with every song and rhyme and game to play, you already do it, every day!”

These days, author Lester Wong, a Chico pathologist and the father of three grown children, navigates the world of an empty nester alongside the children’s mom. But he remembers an earlier time when getting the little ones ready for bed filled the transition time with joyful songs and silly rhymes. That, he writes, “morphed into a bedtime book, and as every parent knows, a good bedtime book is worth its weight in gold.”

“Too BUSY For Bed!” (independently published, $27.99 in hardcover, $16.99 in softcover from Made in Chico or from store.bookbaby.com/book/too-busy-for-bed1), by L.K. Wong, features full-color, beautifully exuberant illustrations by Taiwanese-Australian artist (and medical doctor) Amy Lee (kookychooky.com).

“Did you say ‘Bed’?” the child says. “That clock is wrong! It should say, Time for FUN!” Why? “I’m not done; I need more time! Because Sometimes I am … Just … Too … Busy…. My evening’s just begun!”

Oh, the energy. “Sometimes, I am a Teapot, / I’m dancing all about, / This arm a waving handle, / That hand, a whistling spout!” Then it rains (or is the bath water running?). “Sometimes, I’m Itsy-Bitsy / and I’m climbing / up a spout, / It rains, it pours, / an old man snores, / I’m wet! / I whoosh right out!”

Jammies on, it’s time to jump on the bed and do a little exploring. “Away I run, you can’t catch me! / My little legs are quick! / But grown-up legs are faster still, / And long arms do the trick!”

Then, “my wiggle slows…. I’m safe and snug, / A Bug inside a rug.” And now a parent’s gentle rocking: “We’re all back home, down by the bay, / No jumping anymore, / While Mama keeps her quiet watch, / Some watermelons snore!” Of course they do. Dreams come, each “will be like new,” with a parental send off of “I Love You!”

A dreamily wonderful little book that will delight the little ones.

“Letters From The Shire: On Tolkien, His World, And A Better Understanding Of Ours”

“September 22 has, for years, held a special place in my heart,” writes Chicoan Matthew Distefano. “Not only is it the birthday of Bilbo and Frodo Baggins—two of the most famous Hobbits in the history of Middle-earth—but it marks the beginning of one of the greatest adventures ever told. Fittingly, then, I chose to complete this collection of letters around that date. But rather than releasing it on the 22nd itself, I’ve opted for September 23—the day Frodo leaves the Shire.”

The collection is “Letters From The Shire: On Tolkien, His World, And A Better Understanding Of Ours” (in Amazon Kindle format, published by Quoir in Chico, quoir.com). In pastoral language Distefano responds to 22 questions sent to him in response to two previous books, “The Wisdom of Hobbits” and “Mimetic Theory & Middle-earth.” 

Included are letters from his mom and his best friend, Michael Machuga; he and Matthew and their wives have created Happy Woods Farm on property next to Michael’s house in Paradise. Flowers and fruit abound. Hobbits would be pleased. 

As Distefano notes in one of the letters, “I take in many moments throughout the week, soaking in the naked now as often as I’m able. It’s always after smoking from my pipe, which is why I continually assert that I am a Hobbit in all but size.”

Some of the letters Distefano writes are theological. “Tolkien’s world is a monotheistic one,” he writes, but his mythology is not a Christian allegory (as are C.S. Lewis’ Narnia tales). The Hobbits are secular and yet what transpires in Middle-earth is guided by something beyond the halflings, and even the elves. Everyone has a different perspective on what that something is, Distefano says. 

For him, “When we turn inward, however, to our own communal and interdividualistic selves, we start to realize that God is everything and everything is God. That includes you. That includes me.” There are endless debates, but Hobbits get it right; for them, “Life is all about getting their hands dirty and cultivating crops and community.”

This cultivation, he writes, is nothing less than “slow magic.”

“The Goolwind Tales: Book One”

“Avaleigh, a young girl of twelve, could not keep her tears from shedding. Her younger brother, Hayden, a boy no more than nine, followed her lead in sensing the fear that now overwhelmed them.” The Head Caster (a “master of sacred magical arts” and the siblings’ uncle) had just informed the two that their father, who had embarked on a secret mission a year before, was “lost.” 

No one had heard from him for nine months. Their mother had vanished four years ago, likely on the same mission—the retrieval of an ancient book of extraordinary spells.

Readers 9-18 are invited to join Avaleigh and Hayden in an enchanting sword and sorcery quest to find their parents that unfolds in “The Goolwind Tales: Book One” ($13.99 in paperback from Publisher’s Brew, publishersbrew.com; also for Amazon Kindle). 

Written by Ricky Hayes, born and raised in Chico and a consummate world-builder, the story takes place in a world called Goolwind, with “four major islands, each one divided by the treacherous tides of the seas.” Avaleigh and Hayden, descended from a bloodline that makes them no ordinary casters, must journey far from the caster monastery in the kingdom of Essend.

Along the way they are befriended by a group of Goblins as they encounter a series of monsters (pictured in the glossary). The Behemoth Toads, for example, are immense amphibians that devour Goblins; Ash Hounds are fire-breathing beasts; the Gnolls are “a war-minded race of vicious but simple-minded hyena-like humanoids.”

Battles abound (though very little blood is shown) as Avaleigh and Hayden grow in their caster abilities, controlling water and wind with Thunder Strikes and Sinister Cyclones, to fight ever-present enemies. But Hayden is a little too sure of himself, and faces his own demise, saved by a Bonecrackle Caster called Jasper, a specter “improperly laid to rest … who either died violently, foolishly by their own hand, or a curse of some kind.”

Each time Hayden overextends his powers, using up his life energy, Jasper pumps his heart back to life. But Hayden needs the curse lifted, so the journey continues with new urgency, paving the way for the next book in the series.

“Our Marriage: Sixty-Four Years And Counting: A Testament To Enduring Love”

Retired Butte County educators Jim and Nancy Barnes now live near Paradise Lake, the same home as Jim’s “Little Mouse” creation (www.LittleMouseTheMouse.com). Jim “is eighty-six years old,” Nancy writes. “I am eighty-three…. We have been married for over sixty-four years, and we love each other more now than when we courted, when we were newlyweds, and when we celebrated our twenty-fifth and fiftieth anniversaries where we renewed our vows.”

“Our Marriage: Sixty-Four Years And Counting: A Testament To Enduring Love” ($10.99 in paperback, independently published; also for Amazon Kindle), by Nancy Marie Barnes, is not a guidebook for others but rather a celebration of God’s goodness. 

In over seventy prayerful reflections, Nancy writes “as a God-fearing woman, believing in holding good morals and values and desiring to be the very best person possible—who loves the Lord with all her heart, mind, and soul—and who is incredibly in love” with Jim. (The two were married at St. Thomas More Catholic Church in Paradise.)

Marriage is a sacred vow. “We knew we were both humans with faults,” Nancy writes, “and when things were going bad, we’d hang in there and work through any issues. In any disagreements we addressed the problem, not with the attitude of who was right and who was wrong but the best way to solve or address it.”

“The moment I recognize that Jim is upset, it does not matter why. I ask, ‘Do you want to be helped, heard, or hugged?’ I may not word it just that way, but I know the gist.”

Not all their dreams came true. “Although we didn’t have children (not by our choice), we scored well in … serving children and parents in the elementary school setting. Actually, both of our careers and our marriage made good our commitment to ‘spiritual good.’”

There are special moments, “sitting close, kissing, hugging, listening to soft instrumental music, or quietly listening to the crackling fire in the fireplace, just the two of us, thanking the Lord for all His gifts, this day and this lifetime, seen and unseen. We are blessed,” Nancy writes, “with ‘Taste of Heaven’ moments.”

“California Against The Sea: Visions For Our Vanishing Coastline”

“The California Coast, studied closely” writes LA Times environmental reporter Rosanna Xia, “is fractal, each part distinct, and impossible to appraise as one sweeping entity. Forcing a single big solution for the entire state would also overlook the communities that have long been neglected, and the many neighborhoods and homes that have been quietly sacrificed.”

Xia’s deep reporting brings a nuanced understanding to the battle against the rising Pacific. “California Against the Sea: Visions For Our Vanishing Coastline” ($22 in paperback from Heyday) focuses on at-risk communities, mostly in the lower half of the state. “Imperial Beach,” she writes, “stands to lose one-third of the town to sea level rise, but few residents have processed this slow-moving disaster that is already sweeping over their shore.”

The work is the Book In Common for both Butte College and Chico State (www.csuchico.edu/bic) for the 2025-2026 academic year. (Xia is scheduled to speak at Chico State on April 2, 2026.)

“Much of California’s coastal development coincided with the calmest period of an ocean-atmosphere cycle known as the Pacific Decadal Oscillation…. This ‘sea level rise suppression,’ as scientists call it, kept huge storms in check and the rate of sea rise below the global average…. In the last 100 years, the sea rose less than 9 inches in California; by the end of this century, the surge could be greater than 6, possibly 7 feet.”

Part of Xia’s story involves the effect of the California Coastal Act of 1976 which established the California Coastal Commission, “one of the most powerful land use agencies in America.” There is constant political tension between preserving the beaches and expansion of development.

Communities have tried to hold back sea rise with seawalls, which are now crumbling in many places; dredging for sand; and “managed retreat”—“move back, relocate, essentially cede the land to nature.” But “many declared retreat un-American.”

Yet, Xia writes, “when we don’t understand and don’t allow for the ocean’s ways, we end up with homes perched on the crumbling cliffs of Pacifica and the seawalls still making a stand in Laguna.” It’s compelling reading showing that things are--not so pacific after all.