About
Joanne is the author and illustrator of The Crooked Dog series, a heartfelt children’s book collection inspired by her rescued Dachshund, Jo Jo. After spending more than 30 years in banking, Joanne discovered a new chapter in life when she became a grandmother. Reading books with her grandsons, Stanley and Bristow, awakened her love for children’s stories and inspired her to create books of her own.
A lifelong resident of Hawaii and now a world traveler through her family’s move to Bali, Joanne brings warmth, joy, and a deep appreciation for family and connection into her work. She creates all of her own illustrations, often drawing while watching happy movies because she believes joy can be felt through the artwork.
Dogs have always been central to Joanne’s life, especially Dachshunds. Jo Jo, the inspiration behind The Crooked Dog series, came into her life through rescue and later survived a serious back injury. His slightly crooked walk became the heart behind the series name. Through her books, Joanne shares a meaningful message with families: pets are forever family, and with love, care, patience, exercise, and a healthy diet, animals can live happy, cherished lives.
Involution-An Odyssey Reconciling Science to God
Description
<p>“<em>We are not human beings having a spiritual experience; we are spiritual beings having a human experience.”(</em>Teilhard de Chardin<em>)</em></p><p><span style="line-height:1.6em;"><em>Involution-An Odyssey Reconciling Science to God </em> is as layered as a French cassoulet, as diverting, satisfying and as rich. Each reader will spoon this book differently. On the surface it seems to be a simple and light-hearted poetic journey through the history of Western thought, dominantly scientific, but enriched with painting and music. Beneath that surface is the sauce of a new evolutionary idea, involution; the informing of all matter by consciousness, encoded and communicating throughout the natural world. A book about the cathedral of consciousness could have used any language to paint it, but science is perhaps most in need of new vision, and its chronology is already familiar.</span></p><p><span style="line-height:1.6em;">The author offers a bold alternative vision of both science and creation: she suggests that science has been incrementally the recovery of memory, the memory of evolution/involution</span><em style="line-height:1.6em;">.</em></p><p>“<em> Involution proposes that humans carry within them the history of the universe, which is (re)discovered by the individual genius when the time is ripe. All is stored within our DNA and awaits revelation. Such piecemeal revelations set our finite lives in an eternal chain of co-creation and these new leaps of discovery are compared to mystical experience</em>” (From a reviewer)</p><p>Each unique contributor served the collective and universal return to holism and unity. Thus the geniuses of the scientific journey, like the spiritual visionaries alongside, have threaded the rosary of science with the beads of inspiration, and through them returned Man to his spiritual nature and origin.</p><p><span style="line-height:1.6em;">The separation between experience and the rational intellect of science has, by modelling memory as theory, separated its understanding from the consciousness of all, and perceives mind and matter as separate, God and Man as distinct. This work is a dance towards their re-unification: Saints and scientists break the same bread.</span></p><p><span style="line-height:1.6em;">All of time and all the disciplines of science are needed for the evidence. Through swift (and sometimes sparring) Cantos of dialogue between Reason and Soul, Philippa Rees takes the reader on a monumental journey through the history of everything – with the evolution of man as one side of the coin and involution the other. The poetic narrative is augmented by learned and extensive footnotes offering background knowledge which in themselves are fascinating. In effect there are two books, offering a right and left brain approach. The twin spirals of a DNA shaped book intertwine external and internal and find, between them, one journey, Man’s recovery of Himself., and (hopefully) the Creation’s recovery of a nobler Man.</span></p><p><span style="line-height:1.6em;">From the same review “</span><em style="line-height:1.6em;">The reader who finishes the book will not be the same as the one who began it. New ideas will expand the mind but more profoundly, the deep, moving power of the verse will affect the heart.</em></p><p><em>(Marianne Rankin: Director of Communications, Alister Hardy Trust)</em></p><p> </p>
Story Behind The Book
Jo Jo, the little dog in the book, was inspired by a real dachshund who came into my life on Mother’s Day in 2011. A rescue group called me about a frightened little dog who needed a home, and from that moment, he became part of our family.
Jo Jo had a difficult beginning. He had been found running loose on a golf course, scared, skinny, and without a tag or microchip. No one came looking for him. A few months after we adopted him, he broke his back. With love, patience, and care, he slowly healed, but he walked a little crooked afterward. That is how The Crooked Dog got its name.
I wrote this story to share an important message with children and families: every animal deserves love, kindness, and a second chance. Pets are not temporary. When we bring them into our homes, they become family forever.
As a grandmother, I also wanted to create a gentle children’s book that families could read together. My grandsons helped inspire my love for children’s books, and Jo Jo inspired the heart of this story. The Crooked Dog is about rescue, friendship, healing, and the special bond between a child and a dog.
