“Winnie-the-Pooh meets Marvel Comics”

Welcome to the World of Montgomery!

Since September 2014, I’ve been telling my kids bedtime stories every night about a whole set of characters, in a magical and multi-faceted world centering around Montgomery the Moose.

The stories are based in the woods of Maine (where we were staying for a weekend when I told the first story), but the stories include a multitude of characters (Unpredictable Horse; Bobby the Alien and his sentient Spaceship who invents things that often work TOO well; Leena Feleena Ant – a.k.a. “LF Ant”; Mr. Toucan – who stops flying by folding his wings up and just crashing to the ground; two 6-inch-tall people named Jerry and Tommy who have a long family history involving a magical land with two suns; a small purple dragon; Marsupial the Squirrel; the Elephant of Surprise; a young warrior named Marina Serevy solving the mystery of her father’s disappearance, a superhero fish known as the Caped Cod, and many more). Each character has had their own stories or story arcs, and depending on the story, the genre varies from straightforward comedy to time travel, space travel, magic worlds – but usually involving some slapstick element based on clumsiness or misunderstanding, inspired by our family’s love of classic characters like Paddington Bear and Winnie The Pooh.

After telling close to 600 of these stories, I was encouraged by a number of people to start writing them down – many of our favorite children’s books started with a father telling them to his children, it turns out. So here goes…. And once in a while, I’ll throw in other stories I’ve told that aren’t part of Montgomery’s world, like the Adventures of Joy the Cat (who in many ways was our first child), or the Sea Star who wants to Sea Stars.

If other kids like these as much as my kids do, that would be wonderful. And if this inspires other parents to make up stories for their kids too? Even better.