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A CHILDREN'S BOOK SERIES TOLD IN FOUR ARCS
As the wind blows, so we learn our own path.​
As the sun shines, so we grow closer together.
In an awakening world,
the animals and plants would awaken too.
GLENGARRY
TALES
As the snow falls, so we discover the mysteries of the North.
As the seasons turn, so we uncover the secrets of them all.
FOUR STORY ARCS IN
A TWENTY-FIVE BOOK SERIES
Main Character: Morris the Muskrat
Glengarry Tales is a richly imagined journey from childhood to young adulthood. The series' final stories lead to the author's YA and adult books, much as The Hobbit opened the way to The Lord of the Rings. But the source of wonder here is not fantasy, rather a renewed vision of nature in magically real settings.
Glengarry Tales is magical realism for kids, a Canadian woodland epic where nature itself is awakening. As the veil between species thins, animals, plants, and people start to see and understand one another anew. ​
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Once nature begins to speak, young readers are drawn into a mystical quest to discover our planet's hidden intelligence.
Their guide along the way is Morris the Muskrat, whose creativity and friendships help him resolve challenges and bridge divides. His journey carries him from adventures in the marshlands, to his workshop in the humans' town, to a quest to understand changes in the world as humans, animals and plants communicate with one other.
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Set in rural Eastern Ontario, Canada, the series traverses a living landscape whose lessons and shared wisdom will last a lifetime.
SERIES OVERVIEW
Glengarry Tales is a series that grows with its readers. This four-arc work guides its readers through the full 6–12 middle-grade span with progressive sophistication of prose, metaphor, and theme, while establishing a bridge toward the author’s forthcoming YA and adult novels.
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THE BRIDGE
Based on this storyworld’s depiction of Earth awakening to a higher level of consciousness, the characters gather and preserve the shared wisdom of all beings, shaped by their widening understanding of reality. Each story reflects this planetary awakening and contributes to an unfolding mythos. Together, these wisdoms form a bridge toward what later becomes known as Full Spectrum Reality: a living synthesis of the cosmic, the natural, and the human.:
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THE WISDOM OF THE STARS (mentioned in Glengarry Tales)
THE WISDOM OF THE TREES (partly revealed in Glengarry Tales)
THE WISDOM OF THE ANIMALS (the outcome of Glengarry Tales)
THE WISDOM OF THE HUMANS (the outcome of YA & adult novels)
ARC ONE: GROWING AS A PERSON
KNOWING ONESELF AND OVERCOMING OBSTACLES
IN SEVEN BOOKS
Ages 6–7. The series introduces children to the natural world as a source of lifelong wisdom, beginning with the theme of knowing oneself. In these early stories, characters discover their unique talents and interests while facing challenges such as bullying and self-doubt. Young readers meet Morris Tallgrass, a muskrat who struggles with his initial inability to swim but reveals his gifts as a builder and dreamer. Morris's story becomes part of every child’s first realization that what makes them different is what makes them shine.
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Book 1: Morris the Master Meshmaker. We meet Morris as a very young muskrat who cannot yet swim, a source of shame for him, but he discovers his gift for weaving mats and baskets. When his basket boat sweeps him downstream to the nearby town, Morris’s mother and friends join the search, introducing readers to the world of Glengarry Tales.
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Book 2: Morris Braves the Water.
Morris faces bullying from Ondatra, the neighbours' daughter, who mocks him for taking longer to learn how to swim. He bravely swims to a family gathering, while holding fast to paddles he made through his unique talents. -
Book 3: Paleslip and Balathina.
On his first day of life, Paleslip the fawn narrowly escapes a fox. He soon meets Balathina, another young fawn, and their friendship helps them overcome fear and have fun. -
Book 4: Songs of the Flowers. In a sunlit flower garden, hummingbirds, bees, and butterflies gather among the blossoms, their conversations weaving an alphabetic dream that reveals the hidden poetry of nature.
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Book 5: The Bees of Cedar Knot.
A colony of wild bees resists every attempt by a would-be beekeeper to capture them, in a comedic introduction to human interactions with the wild creatures of the series. -
Book 6: Mouselings. Baby mice snuggle into their nest to sip mouse tea while their mother tells them a fairytale, blending memories and lore of the fieldmice.
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Book 7: The Vixen's Long Day. A mother fox, separated from her kits, calls out to them from a high rock. Her panic relays a cautionary tale about listening to one’s parents.
Morris bobbed down the Garry River. The banks widened. Carp flitted below him, while seagulls swooped and called overhead. Morris shivered. He had to stop before nightfall but the basket was hard to steer. It was dark by the time he landed on the river bank.
From Book 1: Morris the Master Meshmaker
ARC Two; GROWING with Others
THE ANIMALS OF GLENGARRY
IN SEVEN BOOKS
Ages 8-10. The second arc of stories explores how we engage with others. With a focus on cooperation and honing skills and knowledge, the books in this arc show the value of friendship and community. Readers also learn about natural sources of food and water. Morris becomes a contractor and assists humans as they dig wells, run farms, build houses, and conserve wildlands. His workshop becomes a hub for many of the stories in this section, This arc suggests that humans can live in harmony with the environment.
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Book 8: Morris the Muskrat Goes to the Highland Games. Morris the Muskrat and friends go to Glengarry's Highland Games. They learn to play the bagpipes and have a tiny caber toss. The story asks the reader to think about their own sports, culture and community.
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Book 9: Morris Digs a Well. As lead builder among the muskrats, Morris joins the beavers to help the humans dig a well. Readers learn where water comes from, how it comes up through pipes to help us, and then returns to the underground river where it lives.
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​Book 10: Morris sets up a workshop in the humans' town and it becomes a hub where animals and humans trade news and talk of building and food production. The animals chat with the barn cats at a Glengarry dairy and learn about the cheese that the humans make there.
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​Book 11: Henkania the Hermit Thrush teaches the other birds how to sing.
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Book 12: The animals catch a ride on a pile of horse carrots to visit livestock on the farm. They hear how horses view the farms and woodlands - and human civilization.
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Book 13: Bettina the Cat tangles with a tomcat who rolls into town and she stands her ground. The subtext engages with young readers about adults' challenges.
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Book 14: After wreaking havoc across Glengarry, Valpol the Coyote gets his just deserts. As the humans set out to hunt him, the animals have to admit they for once see the humans' point of view. Valpol escapes but learns humility.​
ARC THREE:
ADVENTURES AND MYSTERIES
THE QUEST
IN SEVEN BOOKS
Ages 10-12. As children grow up with the series, the stories open up to pre-YA adventures in the third and fourth arcs. Why can the animals and plants suddenly communicate with humans in a way that all can understand each other? The animal characters go on an epic journey and discover why the world has changed.
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Some inspirations for the mood of the third and fourth Arcs: The Dark Crystal, The Little Mermaid, The Chronicles of Prydain,The NeverEnding Story, The Hobbit, the Narnia Books.
Morris at Kingsmere
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Book 15: The Wisdom of the Stars. The animals go to St. Raphael’s Church ruins, where the humans are watching the Perseids meteor shower. The animals are shocked to realize that they can hear the meteors' voices. The falling stars sing stories which the animals have never heard before.
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Book 16: Crisis. Farmers cut down a forest and all the animals move to a neighboring forest and house on the next property. The shock makes the animals ask why the humans did this. The story explores the relationship between nature and humans at a deeper level.
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Book 17: Clement, leader of the beavers, dies. The beavers and the muskrats meet at the beavers’ Great Lodge and realize they need a larger understanding. Not all humans are the same. Not all animals are the same. The trees are waking up. Morris and his friends begin a quest for knowledge.
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Book 18: Morris and the Migratory Animals. A black bear passes through local orchards in spring, Morris asks him what is ‘out there.’ The first Eastern Cougar arrives in Glengarry. The animals send a delegation to ask her what she knows from her travels. The animals speak to an Eastern Wolf who is passing through; what does he know of the Algonquian wildlands to the north?
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Book 18: Morris meets crayfish in a pond, in a lesson about darker characters. They lead him to the King of Salamanders, a Yoda-like figure whose advice deepens the mystery.
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Book 19: The Wisdom of the Trees. Morris approaches an awakened oak tree, asks it what it knows. It inspires the animals to make a trek to a patch of forest which has never been cut by the humans. At the heart of the forest, they meet an ancient yellow birch, which tells them that the trees have compiled the wisdom of the plant kingdom.
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Books 20 & 21 (Two Parts): The Parliament of the Animals. Through a portal at Kingsmere, Morris attends the Parliament of the Animals, who gain an audience with Mother Earth. There is a crossover with events recounted in my short story, ‘Kingsmere Gate," a story in Douglass's YA/adult fiction novel, Isis Chrysalis.​​
From Glengarry Tales to Isis Chrysalis
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The author's works for children and adults form a single evolving mythos that imagines a vast renewal of our planet. The Glengarry Tales stories portray the awakening of animals and plants, giving rise to their collection of bodies of knowledge: The Wisdom of the Stars, The Wisdom of the Trees, and The Wisdom of the Animals.
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Douglass's books for young adult and adult readers exploreThe Wisdom of the Humans, thereby completing this circle of awareness.
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Below is Douglass's reading from "Kingsmere Gate," an excerpt from her adult novel, Isis Chrysalis. It features the 'Parliament of the Animals' scene that appears in both Glengarry Tales and Isis Chrysalis.
Crossover to YA and Adult Books
Arc four:
the stories of the seasons
THE WISDOM OF THE ANIMALS
IN FOUR BOOKS
Ages 8-12. In Glengarry Tales, different groups of animals act as the guardians of the wilds' collected knowledge, which they call the 'Wisdom of the Animals.'
The seasonal tales provide a greater vision of Morris the Muskrat's adventures: from self, to others, to deeper wisdom, and finally to higher awakening.
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- Book 1: The Watchers of January. The rabbits and hare gather in the heart of winter to tell a story of those who stay awake in winter's hard times and know the greatest secrets of trusting oneself and others in times of survival.
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Book 2: The Keepers of the Dawn. The beavers and muskrats call together folk across the marshlands to understand why Father Sun leaves them in winter and returns in spring. The parable inside the story is the tale of Minnifair the Squirrel, who was bullied to a crisis point that unifed the animals into collective action.
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Book 3: At the height of midsummer, the deer gather to remember the Great Stag who recited poems about the forest's realms beyond the visible.
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Book 4: The coyotes gather in a howlfest to understand the Hunters' Way and how it fits with the human presence and domesticated animals, and with more peaceful wild animals and birds.
Foxes and Rabbits
The Dawn Meeting of Predators and Prey
Tala the Turtle
"Follow the waterways, Muskrat Child! They
are the map of everything that moves and grows. They will guide you wherever you may go. Life begins in mud and reeds, as we swim the waterflow.
Sing of wind, and rise like trees, we laugh despite the undertow."
Morris the Muskrat
"All along,, I thought that building a workshop in the humans' town was my destiny. But every bridge I built and well I dug led back to me. Then I realized that the way forward begins where the mapped road ends, into a dream of nature's soul."
Bettina
Queen Cat of Alexandria
"I just got back from the vet's in Vankleek Hill where I got my claws done. Keep them short and sharp, Muskrat Child! The humans adore a well-groomed savage. But remember, they bow only to those who land on all four paws."
Paleslip the Stag
"Test us now, test us then. We remember what the Great Stag said: the balance must be born again. The forest keeps its oaths in song, because the Deer People still run strong. We will carry Midsummer's light into the eclipsed heart of solstice night."
Valpol the Coyote
"It's nights like these,
I turns and sees, I sees the way my way turns blue. And at the crack I don't turn back.
But even I don't howl long when the moon sleeps lost and cold and new. And if the stars went dark one night, I might, just might, turn back to you."
Nox the Owl
"You ask the way, Morris. After you left your well-worn path? I only speak of what the stars have forgotten, for they never stray. All roads and rivers will take you there. Everyone, humans, plants, animals, will follow this same wind. I just wouldn’t bet a tail feather on this being your smoothest flight."
MARKET OVERVIEW​​
Target Audience
Glengarry Tales will appeal to readers who love timeless animal-centered adventures that combine allegory, nature, and moral imagination. Like The Hobbit and The Chronicles of Narnia, the series carries epic scope and symbolic depth; like Pax and The Wind in the Willows, it weaves emotional resonance into the natural world. Its charm and accessibility place it in the tradition of Beatrix Potter, Thornton W. Burgess, and the Canadian Beaverdime books.
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Comparable Titles
Classic Childhood Animal Books
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Peter Rabbit books, Beatrix Potter (1902 onward)
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The Wind in the Willows, Kenneth Grahame (1908)
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Thornton W. Burgess books (e.g. Old Mother West Wind, 1910 onward)
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Bambi, a Life in the Woods, Felix Salten (1923)
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Winnie-the-Pooh, A.A. Milne (1926)
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Charlotte’s Web, E.B. White (1952)
Fantasy Epics for Younger Readers
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The Hobbit, J.R.R. Tolkien (1937)
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The Chronicles of Narnia, C.S. Lewis (1950–1956)
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The Chronicles of Prydain, Lloyd Alexander (1964-1968)
Modern Animal Narratives
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Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH, Robert C. O’Brien (1971)
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The Tale of Despereaux, Kate DiCamillo (2003)
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Pax, Sara Pennypacker (2016)
Animal Quests and Communities
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Watership Down, Richard Adams (1972)
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The Animals of Farthing Wood, Colin Dann (1979)
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Redwall series, Brian Jacques (1986–2011)
Canadian Lineage
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Wild Animals I Have Known, Ernest Thompson Seton (1898)
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The Beaverdime series (1952–1975)
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Fox Mykyta, Ivan Franko, English edition illustrated by William Kurelek (1978)
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Silverwing trilogy, Kenneth Oppel (1997–2007)
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Target Audience:
Children aged 6–12, particularly intellectually curious, sensitive, and imaginative readers, as well as parents, grandparents, teachers, and librarians who value high literary and artistic quality, environmental awareness, and meaningful allegory. The series also offers crossover family reading, with rich prose, metaphor, deeper themes which progressively build across the books, and emotional nuance.
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Primary markets: Canada, the United States, and the United Kingdom.
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Global audience: Multicultural families and educators in Australia, Western Europe, and internationally, who value empathy, environmental awareness, and timeless storytelling traditions.
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Format Innovation:
A potential bilingual edition (English on one side, French or another locally appropriate language on the reverse) will broaden market reach in both English and French-speaking or other linguistic communities in Canada, Europe, and internationally. Bilingual editions could support language learning.
INSPIRATIONS FROM THE REAL WORLD
To write these stories, the author drew from fifteen years of personal experience with private forest stewardship and four years of volunteer work on the Board of the local woodland trails charity, as well as lifelong observations of agriculture in Glengarry County, Ontario, Canada.
Introductory Video from the Author
Glengarry is a historic agricultural county halfway between Ottawa and Montreal, Canada. Bounded by the St. Lawrence River to the south, it lies north of Akwesasne, a sliver of Quebec, and New York state. The county has notable wild areas, including Loch Garry lake and connected marshlands and forests. Despite its proximity to urban centres, it remains a natural haven.
AUTHOR'S VISION
About
The Author
Larissa Douglass is an Oxford-educated and award-winning author who has written across many genres, from poetry to non-fiction. Originally from Montreal, her parents moved with her to Glengarry in 1974.
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With years of experience teaching K–12 students as well as undergraduates, she is deeply aware of the educational potential of storytelling. She sees Glengarry Tales not only as a literary work, but also as a foundation for educational and creative initiatives that invite children to think and connect with nature as part of a lifelong journey.
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The idea that animals and plants might be gaining new forms of awareness first appeared in Douglass’s 2017 blog post, Cairn Building Sacred Tree Chimps. Researchers from the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology had observed male chimpanzees in Guinea-Bissau apparently creating a sacred site and worshipping at it. Another inspiration was a beloved oak tree at the foot of the author's property, marked by a natural heart on its trunk. Although healthy, the tree was felled by North Glengarry Township on 6 September 2022. The tree appears in Glengarry Tales and in the Isis Chrysalis story, The Kingdom of the Squirrels.
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Douglass’s work on Glengarry Tales forms a foundational prelude to a young adult- and adult-oriented series of magical realist novels, listed on her main website, LCDOUGLASS.COM. Her years at Oxford at the turn of the Millennium deepened her admiration for J.R.R. Tolkien and C.S. Lewis, who remain guiding lights in her creative life. She conceives of her work as a contemporary continuation of Lewis's Space Trilogy and a reawakening of moral imagination for the modern world: the Silent Planet is no longer silent.​​
Why Glengarry Tales?
Why Glengarry Tales and why now? Children growing up surrounded by noise and uncertainty need more than distraction. They need a sense of belonging to the living world. In these stories, nature is not backdrop but teacher. Glengarry Tales is not an escape from reality but a re-enchantment of it, a reminder that taking time to understand and observe nature is a form of love.
CONTACT
LITERARY INQUIRIES
Representation and Publishing Opportunities
I welcome inquiries from literary agents, publishers, and creative collaborators who share a love of nature, imagination, and timeless storytelling.
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If Glengarry Tales and the world of Morris the Muskrat resonate with your vision, I would be delighted to hear from you.
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E-Mail: larissa.douglass@sant.oxon.org
Please click below for my contact form.
