Empress

Empress Iona is more than a queen-she is also the keeper of our dreams. A young boy who lives alone with his father is invited to travel to the Northern Empire where he meets Empress Iona, and is given a precious gift. From the Text... On a cold December night, many years ago, I lay on a tattered quilt next to the fireplace. I wiggled my toes to the soft warmth of the fire and carefully turned the page of an old book my father had given me on my last birthday. Across the room, father stirred in his bed, his sleep tormented by the loss of my mother in an ice storm in the winter of my third year. His pipe lay on the mantel above the fireplace, untouched since the night, so long ago, when a man from the village told father of my mother's death and filled our cabin with sorrow. Empress is ideally suited as a bedtime story to be read aloud, for children ages 3 to 6.