Lisa Broadie Cook Biography - Sidelights

Lisa Broadie Cook is a teacher who has two published children's books to her credit. In The Author on My Street she shows young readers that writers are regular, everyday people who have a knack for seeing stories in even the most commonplace things.Cook's second book, Martin MacGregor's Snowman, was inspired by a life spent in northern climes—Cook reported on her Web site that she has lived in Kansas, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Iowa—and introduces readers to a young boy named Martin. Known throughout the neighborhood for building the biggest snowman the year before, Martin can't wait for the winter snow to fall so he can once again start building. He so intensely anticipates the season's first snowfall, in fact, that he creates snow-like scenes wherever he can, even gluing cotton balls to the family dog and arranging the marshmallows in his hot chocolate in the shape of a snowman. Cook "humorously conveys the intensity of longing for something elusive" by depicting Martin "as a suffering artist who (until the last moment) works in everything but his desired medium" commented a reviewer for Publishers Weekly, while Joy Fleishhacker called Martin MacGregor's Snowman "a fun choice for snow dreamers."