Welcome to the World of Sparky Sparrow

Who is Sparky Sparrow?

Sparky Sparrow is a tradtional family bedtime story celebrating fifty years of telling. Sparky Sparrow is also the world's first oral fable to leverage the emerging world of on-demand digital publishing.

My father invented Sparky Sparrow out of necessity. While raising four children on a small farm in Virginia from the late 1950's through the 1970's my mother and father had their hands full. So to help their new family go to sleep my father thought up Sparky Sparrow and wove tales around his adventures. We vacationed regularly in Maine and the Canadian Maritime throughout our childhood and I believe that is where The Big Pine Forest originated.

Sparky Sparrow stories always began the same. He lived in the Big Pine Tree in the Big Pine Forest with his mother and father and sister Esmeralda. From there Sparky was usually off on some exciting new adventure. Not too long; just enough to get us to sleep. Some were even a little spooky.

When I had children of my own I finally realized why he invented Sparky Sparrow stories. I found that getting my kids to bed was one thing but getting them to stay in bed and go to sleep was quit another. So when I had exhausted all the children's books I began making up stories. From there it did not take long to run out of material. In desperation I started to tell my own Sparky Sparrow stories.

To my surprise my kids loved them and began to ask for more. More adventures. As with all tales they seem to improve, or at least change, with the telling. My rendition adopted the formal beginning but expanded on Sparky's territory and friends. But at the heart they have always been Sparky Sparrow stories.

So in 2002, as Sparky Sparrow became a staple around my house thus cementing himself in our family lore, I asked my father to write down his favorite story. The rest is history.