In the spring of 1999 Andover Green Book Publishers began work on an anthology of international children's STORIES called Six Inches to England, whose sole purpose was to give children the opportunity to discover the very best of their world.  In addition, if we could get people to buy the book, the proceeds were to be used to buy new books for schools in rural Russian villages.
     We'd just begun work on the book, when we got a call one day from someone we didn't know asking about the anthology.  The conversation ended and we in the office went back to work. However, an hour later, the woman called back with the names, phone numbers, and addresses of people in over a dozen different countries.  Over the next two years, we would be in awe of the contacts Priscilla would make effortlessly with people we would never have had the courage to approach.
     One of her friends in Scotland, for instance, had told her about Duncan Williamson.  He was the son of travellers, or Scotish gypsies, famed for their storytelling despite the fact that traveller children, when Duncan was growing up, rarely received more than a grade school education.  Yet, from his father's STORIES, Duncan, the seventh of sixteen children, not only felt genuinely loved, but received "something that was going to stand us through our entire life".
     Priscilla got hold of one of his books, fell in love with it, and promptly sent us his address.  He was well-known and enormously talented.  "How could he possibly have time for an utterly unknown publisher who can't pay him either a cent or a shilling?" we argued with her.
     Priscilla persisted.  "Just write and ask!"  we did, but the letter was returned unopened.  Duncan had moved and so, with relief, we called Priscilla to say that was that.  An hour later she called us back.  "I have his new address."
     In the intervening hour, she had called the Postmaster of Strathmiglo Scotland, explaining the entire project, as well as our dilemma.  The kindly Postmaster was glad to be of help.  If Priscilla would just give him her number he would ring her right back.  Priscilla then explained that she was calling from America.
     "Never you mind lassie.  Jus' give me yur number and I'll ring you back."  Thus another letter was sent off which Duncan answered immediately.  "You can use as many STORIES as you want from my Books, " he wrote, "as the copy Rites all Belong to me and you have my Permission to use as many STORIES as you want and no one can stop you as long as I say you can use my STORIES.  Please keep in touch and I will send you on another Book you can use."  Every book he sent included a sprig of heather.
     Priscilla would also make a truly miraculous contact with Sue Hendrickson, paleontologist and discoverer of Tyrannosaurus Sue.  Sue would write an incredibly encouraging story about her discovery, in large part because she was already involved in getting books into children's hands in Guatemala and was eager to support all such efforts.
     Another friend of Priscilla's, a Peace Corps worker in West Africa, would hike out into the wilderness, tape recorder in hand, to capture a wonderful story from Khady Diop, a Mauritanian grandmother, and brilliant storyteller.
     Another trek would be made by a journalist for The Christian Science Monitor, Robert Marquand, who would win the help of India's Ruskin Bond.  Mr. Bond allowed us to use his internationally loved story The Blue Umbrella.
     In every case the authors helped us wholeheartedly.  Rachel Crandel, a teacher, author, and growing expert on South America, gave us two STORIES from that part of the world, as well as a contact that resulted in the book being reviewed in Publishers Weekly.
     As STORIES from country after country began to fall into our laps, we next wondered if we could find an astronaut who would help us, someone who had looked out on our world and would remind us of the wonder of it all.  Dr. Rhea Seddon, NASA astronaut, kindly sent a truly touching story that began, "Once upon a space shuttle. . ."
     And so the book was gathered and nurtured by people who fully believed the world still had beautiful STORIES to tell.  The book would open with a moving story from the small, war-torn country of Ingushetia about a grandfather's lesson to his grandson of the worth of peace over "a half-meter of land," and would end with another true story from England called Rainbows.
     A story called Six Inches to England became the title of the book.  It would make the simple point that there was a time for each of us, as children, when "distance had no meaning -- nor foreigners nor strangers."
     The book took over two years of patience and persistence.  Even more, it took the help of people near and far working together and bound together by "a generosity of spirit".  These were individuals who were willing to help people they would never know or meet -- but whose well-being nonetheless mattered to them.
     And so the storybook story of how one more small book came to be.

     --Andover Green Book Publishers

 

  

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