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Jessica’s second book series, The Lobster Chronicles, was recently released by Kids Can Press.
The trilogy centers on the accidental capture of a giant lobster. Each of the three stories is told from the perspective of a boy living in Lower Narrow Spit, a small fishing community on the coast of the North Atlantic.
The first story, Lower the Trap, is told by Graeme Swinimer, the son of the fisherman who caught the giant lobster. The second story, A Narrow Escape, is told by Norris Fowler, the son of the owner of the town’s only lobster cannery. The final story, Spit Feathers, is told by Ferguson Beaver whose grandfather is a retired fisherman reliving his days in a seniors’ residence.
Jessica finds daily inspiration from people and places around her, and produced a short video to document these experiences. For this series, she went out on a lobster expedition in Sambro Harbour (home of the oldest lighthouses in North America); she toured the New England Aquarium in Boston; she interviewed participants at the annual Pictou Lobster Carnival Festival, and she took photographs during her visit to the Northumberland Fisheries Museum. If you’re ever there, look for the plaque featuring lobster claws!
She also got to view the largest lobster in the Nova Scotia provincial collection housed at the Museum of Natural History in Halifax. If you want to see a live lobster, go to this link, which is sponsored by a Halifax waterfront business: live lobster cam.
And, to complete her research, she purchased a giant lobster claw online, which is now on display in her office.
