Patricia Squire Pat is a retired elementary school teacher who has taught all the grades from SKto 8 in Windsor, London and Thunder Bay. Along with a BA in philosophy and math from the University of Windsor, she also has a Bachelor of Education degree and an Honours BA in Psychology from Lakehead University. In 1984, she completed an MA in Clinical Psychology from Lakehead University specializing in the assessment of
school-age children.
Most of her career was spent as a Special Education Resource Teacher in K-8 schools in Thunder Bay and Ottawa culminating in a Special Education Consultancy with the Hamilton Board of Education. In addition, she has taught Special Education courses and Educational Psychology at both Lakehead and Brock Universities. Pat and her husband now live in Guelph, Ontario in the Village by the Arboretum. They have raised three children and showered love on seven grandchildren. Her writing experiences have been varied – presenting numerous workshops on reading and writing to teachers on their professional development days - writing psychological assessment reports - teaching writing skills to her three youngest grandsons via Zoom during the covid pandemic - writing photo stories where each grandchild was the main character in his or her own book. Her lifelong relationships with children have inspired her writing.
Stjarna’s Stars is Pat’s first book, which is intended for readers in the 8-11 age group. The devastation caused by Iceland’s volcanos has been widely broadcast over the past year. Many Canadians don’t know that the same kind of destruction of Iceland villages happened in eastern Iceland 150 years ago in 1875. This caused the migration of many Iceland families to New Iceland which is now the area around Gimli, Manitoba. Seen through the eyes of nine-year-old Stjarna, readers experience the two-week trip across the Atlantic Ocean in a steamship and subsequent railroad travel to the free farmland given by the Canadian government. Then came the gruelling work of building a sod home and starting a farm before the arrival of their first prairie winter. Through all these challenges, Stjarna is hard-working, kind and very protective of the two Icelandic elves who land in her lap one day while on the steamship.
Pat is currently working on the next two books of the Stjarna trilogy. She can be reached at www.stjarnastories.com and author.patsquire@gmail.com.