Dawn Burn

What if the alphabet started to misbehave while you were trying to learn it?

Aldo Renaldo has been having trouble with his alphabet, but he finally thinks he knows it and wants to tell Mommy. When he checks one last time, he finds the letters around his walls are behaving badly. The K knocks out the O, and the W does cartwheels with the M. He tries to restore order, but cannot. All is not lost, though, because when Mommy enters, Aldo uses the new words he has heard from the letters, as he recites the alphabet. When he looks up, the renegade alphabet has restored its proper order.

A Finalist in the San Francisco Writers Conference Writing Contest, Aldo Renaldo was inspired by the author’s experience as a lefty who wrote a few letters backwards in the early days!

George M. Johnson is an award-winning writer, fascinated by the more visual (and collaborative) forms of writing: drama, screenwriting, and picture books. His first picture book, How Hope Became An Activist (Dixi Books) was a Finalist for the Eric Hoffer Awards Montaigne Medal for the most thought-provoking books in all genres. Marisa and the Mountains was a starred selection in the Canadian Children’s Book Centre’s Best Books for Kids, and it is a Finalist in the Chocolate Lily Book Awards. Sophia’s Secrets won the Pacific Northwest Writers’ Association Children’s Story competition. Dawn Burn is a painter, with a Masters Degree in Visual Art, who took a leap of faith in 2020, retiring early from a career as a highschool art teacher to pursue her life fulfillment goal. Since retiring Dawn has realized what was creatively possible of her love of art, books, and education, while illustrating Aldo Renaldo and the Renegade Alphabet. Dawn has also used the experience of her own empowerment, to become a certified Life Empowerment Coach, and speaker, engaging others in their own momentum for change, and personal fulfillment.