“PuppityPup Goes to the Barn” tells the tale of a puppy who goes along with its family to visit a strange place where he encounters creatures and things with which he isn’t familiar and therein encounters life-changing events. A massive barn and a variety of farm animals greet PuppityPup in this adventurous story.

Written by Montana children’s author Rev. M. J. Nicolaus, Ph.D., and illustrated by artist Annie Lawson of Thompson Falls, Montana, the book offers in text and rich watercolor drawings insights into coping with new and strange creatures as well as places different than those you are used to. The book is the second a series by Rev. Nicolaus for children who love puppies and PuppityPup’s future adventures will take him to preschool, and other interesting locations.

This is Rev. Nicolaus’ fourth book. Earlier he authored “PuppityPup Finds a Home,” the first in his series involving an adventurous young puppy,“Horsehide Devotions” and “Horse Tales,” the first a set of daily devotions for a year written for horse lovers and the second a collection of short stories for the same audience. In addition to being a motivational speaker, he has been a parish pastor for 40 years and along with parish work enjoys raising and training horses, hiking, hunting and fishing. He recently moved to Thompson Falls where he is working with an enthusiastic group to start a mission in the Plains-Thompson Falls area. For the past 12 years Rev. Nicolaus was pastor of the St. Paul Lutheran Church in Ronan. He started writing at age 16 as a result of reading Shakespeare and has published poetry, daily devotions and short stories, but now devotes his efforts to writing for children. He and his wife, Jane, have three children and six grandchildren.

Illustrator Annie Lawson is an award-winning artist and illustrator. Born in San Antonio, Texas, in 1977, she has lived in beautiful places from Texas to the Pacific and currently resides in northwestern Montana. Annie works in many mediuims and uses a wide variety of implements such as colored pencil, acrylic pains, oil paints, oil pastels, though he has a special love of drawing simply with ink.

The book was issued in full color, 6½ by 8½-inch softcover format.

ISBN 1-931291-91-8 PuppityPup Goes to the Barn – $9.95