MEET AUTHOR/ILLUSTRATOR AMBER KINGSTON

Growing up in Southern California, author/illustrator Amber Kingston waited all year long not for Christmas and not for her birthday but for St. Patrick’s Day. Like the magic world of Hollywood not far from her door, her house was suddenly transformed into the hills of Ireland, where leprechauns danced in the living room, the walls were decorated with shamrocks and streamers and pots of chocolate coins were everywhere she looked.

Into adulthood, Amber was waiting for just the right opportunity to make St. Patrick’s Day come alive for another little girl. Well, the luck of the Irish made everything possible. Her little cousin Laura, who lived thousands of miles away in Bavaria, was born almost exactly on St Patrick’s Day. On Laura’s first visit to America, Amber helped to create a magic St. Paddy’s Day and birthday party extravaganza all in one and the tradition was reborn.

The inspiration for the story came to Amber as if a leprechaun was sitting on her shoulder, and she began to write an Irish tale where little Laura would be the star of her own special day.

As the story took hold, Laura gave her older cousin a magic gift of her own— Amber started drawing again, something she had not done in many years. She traveled to Bavaria and took photographs, which she decorated using color pencils and glitter because no self-respecting leprechaun would be happy without a little glitter. And so the story evolved, not just in her words but in her pictures as well.

After a career in the world of Hollywood, Amber is now back in college and living in Southern California with her cats, and waiting for her own little girl to share a pot of gold.

Laura and the Leprechauns is Amber’s first book. She is now hard at work on a young adult novel that was put aside to make time for her children’s book that just had to be written.

Sometimes believing in a dream can take you to places where you had never imagined.