What is a great outdoor activity that can drum home the lesson of patience? Whale Watching!

Here is a video reading of Watchful Wishing Whirling Wanda’s Whale Pleas!

It is a story of patience, persistence and optimism.

If you are lucky to live on the east, west or north coasts of Canada whale watching is a great family activity that can emphasize that patience has it has rewards, whale sightings! Now I realize that seeing whales from shore are not as easy as being on a whale watching tour, but not impossible. In our area, whales are sighted from shore around Sooke. Given the pandemic, I think it will still be awhile for charters to be going out but certainly given our beaches and coastline are open we can sit patiently, watch and wait.

This story was first inspired by conversations with a friend, Karen Jukes, while we dined in Hawaii. We were chatting about the beauty of whales and story writing. One idea rolled into another and I was inspired to write. Initially the idea was that they story was about a little girl who kept telling people she saw a whale but every time she looked there was no whale, relating it to the story of the little boy who cried wolf as a fractured fairy tale. As I began to write it, the story evolved into the opposite that everyone else sees a whale but Wanda. It became a story of persistence. I also wanted the grandparents to be the ones to ‘save the day’ as so often that is what grandparents seem to do. I love featuring grandparents in stories. (You can check out In Search of Something Green or Sassy Frass on my YouTube channel)

Dazzle’s Challenge: