By Gagandeep Ghuman
Published: Dec. 8, 2012
Behind a lawnmower, working as a landscaper, Stuart McArthur will drift into everyday worries.
But most of the time, he is thinking about games and stories.
Even when the owner of Studio Landscaping is busy mowing lawns, his mind is busy putting together a clever board game.
On lunch breaks, he whips out a notepad to write it all down.
He has built 12 games for grownups, and this year, Stuart and his wife, Amanda, published their first children’s book.
Called Humphry and the Tree, it tells an endearing story of a hungry cow who is about to eat a tree but stops when the tree speaks to it.
Curious readers can pick up the book at the adventure centre to find out what happens next, but the story has a message for young minds to reflect on.
In McArthur’s words: “If you are willing to take the first step, then good things would come back to you.”
The seeds of the fable were sowed last year when the McArthur family was driving back to Squamish from Kamloops.
The story started as an attempt to humour Shale McArthur, their eldest son, who was getting tired of the journey back to Squamish.
“We were looking at the landscape of trees, and the story just came to me,” he said.
His wife pitched in where he trailed off.
By the time they reached Squamish, the couple thought they had whipped up an interesting children’s story.
McArthur wrote it down, called his sister, and narrated the story.
She agreed it’s something that should find a readership beyond the McArthur house.
And that is what they heard wherever they went.
“Everybody said this is awesome, and we should try to get it published,” said Amanda McArthur.
McArthur heeded the advice.
With the help of their old school teachers, Audrey Rose and Karen Moodie, the McArthurs were able to correct grammatical and spelling errors.
While the story is purposely written for kids, anyone with a sense of humour can enjoy it.
They called up publishing houses in Canada and America, and finally settled on a New Jersey publishing company.
Their self-published book was released this February, and is available at the Squamish Adventure centre and Kaos Kids.
Stuart McArthur is planning on giving a reading at the Squamish Public Library soon.
He already has two stories planned as sequels to his first book.
One of them is Use your Brain, not Brawn, while the other is called Humphry Starts to Feel Hungry.
“We started telling this as a fun story, but we had no idea this would turn into a book,” said an excited Stuart McArthur.
