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Here out of the family's treasure chest is the author's great-great-grandma, Amy Ruth Stevens, born in Lake County, California, in August 1842 (before there was a Lake County). She was taught fishing and trapping by children of the neighboring Pomo tribe. She lived a long, productive life. Widowed five times, she kept witty journals about her matrimonial lives that have helped fuel Jonathan's literary efforts. She got him to think about The Far Side of the Moon.
And about the author himself, fifth-generation Northern Californian Jonathan Pearce is a part-time author and part-time teacher in the California State University system. He has lived and labored in towns much like Balona. Besides having so far written a good many books about Balona folks, Jonathan Pearce is also the author of articles, critiques, minutes, reviews, ERIC documents, speeches, opera libretti; and reports in the hundreds, some published; a volume of poetry; and thousands of memos more often than not ignored.
Jonathan Pearce has also performed as musician, concrete finisher, soldier, bodyguard, cab driver, radio announcer, railway mudhop, and high school teacher, counselor, and principal. He is therefore familiar with the stimulation and boredom of the workaday world, the dreams and anxieties of youth and their parents, and the interesting dynamics of academia, lower and upper.
The author is a member of 
(Northern California Publishers and Authors),
SPAN (Small Publishers Association of North America), SCBWI, (Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators), NCTE (National Council of Teachers of English); Life Member of the Sierra Club, and a fellow of
ORTHO (American Orthopsychiatric Association).
He enjoys Turkish coffee, American movies, Italian operas, Japanese novels, German Lieder, French poems, and Danish with hot chocolate.
Many of the original editions of the author's books have cover/title art by the distinguished artist and teacher
For perhaps even 
than you ever wanted to know about Jonathan and Balona.
