As a child, Carol Anne Shaw was always being reprimanded for drawing in her school books and creating cartoons of her least favourite teachers. Hannah & the Spindle Whorl, her first novel, grew out of her fascination with B.C. history, especially its First Nations people. She lives on Vancouver Island with her husband, two sons and two dogs.

Hannah & the Spindle Whorl tells the story of a 12-year-old girl who uncovers an ancient Salish spindle whorl hidden in a car near Cowichan Bay. She is transported back to a time before Europeans had settled the area and befriends Yisella, a young Salish girl, who welcomes her into village life. Later, Hannah and Yisella witness the arrival of Gov. James Douglas and numerous settlers. As the settlers pillage the village, the girls rescue the spindle whorl and escape into a cave. Hannah returns to her own time with a greater understanding of herself and the First Nations people.

In Hannah & the Salish Sea (Ronsdale $11.95), the second volume of a Cowichan Bay-based trilogy by Carole Ann Shaw, sixteen-year-old Hannah meets an angry Métis girl named Izzy Tate who is the spitting image of Yisella who she met while time-travelling in Volume One. A ring of poachers are threatening a nest of starving eaglets, as well as the Roosevelt elk, so Hannah, her heart-throb Max and Issy must join forces to stop the poachers.

Hannah & the Wild Woods has 14-year-old Hannah cleaning beach debris that has drifted across the Pacific from the tragic Japanese tsunami of 2011. Her raven sidekick finds a mysterious glass ball, a Japanese girl with a dark magic who is really a spirit fox turns up, and Hannah must return peace to the forest of the Pacific Rim National Park Reserve.

BOOKS:

Hannah & the Spindle Whorl. (Ronsdale 2010) $10.95 978-1-55380-103-0

Hannah & the Salish Sea (Ronsdale 2013) $11.95 978-1-55380-233-4

Hannah & the Wild Woods (Ronsdale 2015) $11.95 978-1-55380-440-6

[BCBW 2015]