For Grandma Allie

This site is dedicated to my grandmother, Allie Southwick.

She was a teacher, an educator, a children’s author, a grandmother and great grandmother. Literacy was not just her profession. It was her life’s work.

Allie believed that every child could learn to read, especially those who struggled most. She developed her own methods to help immigrant children and children falling behind, long before learning differences became common language. She had patience, structure, and an unwavering belief that stories could open doors.

As a child, I spent countless hours in her home library. She let me check out books as if I were in a real library. I took it seriously. I returned them. I reread them. I lived inside them.

I fell in love with classical fairy tales. Not the simplified versions, but the original stories that were strange, thoughtful, and sometimes a little dark. I read and reread everything I could find.

Some of my favorites were:

The Goose Fables

Snow White and Rose Red
The Twelve Dancing Princesses
Goose Fables
The Wild Swans
East of the Sun and West of the Moon

Those stories shaped how I understand imagination. They trusted young readers to think, feel, and wonder. Grandma Allie understood and embodied that trust.

She wrote Goose Fables, a children’s book series focused on values, kindness, and character. It is a quiet classic, and one I hope to republish someday so a new generation of children can find it.

She taught for many years and was a founding member of the Treehouse Children’s Museum, in Ogden, Utah, where children could quite literally step into stories. She loved music, animals, nature, and people. She grew up on a farm in Utah, rode horses, played music, raised four children, and shaped generations of readers without ever seeking attention for it.

Her motto was simple: “Things will turn out better than you can possibly imagine.”

This site, and the resources and ideas connected to it, are steps toward creativity and literacy. I dedicate this to Grandma Allie.

We are capable of evolving our personalities into mature, loving adults who can choose to make good decisions and accept responsibility for our actions. 

Althea Southwick

This is for you, Grandma Allie.

Much love,

Janica