From Trash to Treasure for Teddy Bear Cancer Foundation

While Peter Martin’s children’s book career may have materialized later in life, his knack for storytelling was omnipresent. It all started when his children, Hannah and Gavin, were young, and he would host nighttime story times. They would give him a topic, “and I just made it up on the fly,” Martin recalls. He enjoyed creating these imaginary worlds for his children. “But I never thought about writing stories down until a little later.”

It was this beloved nighttime tradition that inspired the idea for his first and second children’s books, Dragons on the Purple Moon and The Last Lost Forest, respectively. These books mark the beginning of his series, following characters Anna and Avi (he took the middle letters from his children’s names to create the characters) as they navigate different adventures, each time walking away with an important lesson, which is often the power of working together.

His new book, The Mystery of Trash Island, released on October 24, written by Martin and illustrated by Santa Barbara artist Danuta Bennett, follows Anna and Avi as they set off on yet another adventure, this time through a trash portal in their backyard. “I always deal in portals,” Martin jokes. The idea for the book came to him after his experience seeing “oceans of trash” on television. He thought of an idea for a story and an opportunity to educate children about an important topic. “Kids have got amazing minds and amazing imaginations,” he says.

The Mystery of Trash Island follows Anna and Avi, who land on Trash Island. The trash monsters there are worried that the island is overflowing with trash, and they task Anna and Avi with finding a solution to the mess. They must concoct an “elixir of the earth” by combining pool water and snow and ice from the tallest mountains in the world to formulate an antidote to the trash problem. “I wanted it to be an organic solution to the problem,” says Martin. He also wanted to educate children about recycling “so that we don’t keep adding to these islands of trash that are actually in the oceans right now.”

The book, which is suitable for infants to 9-year-olds, also features an interactive element where children can match the name and location of each continent. For this book, he hopes to inspire children to use their imaginations and see “what we can do to reduce the amount of plastic in the world.”

Martin, who is now a number-one international best-selling author, previously worked for 33 years running aerospace programs with a Fortune 100 company. But after his son was diagnosed with brain cancer and prevailed, he decided to retire early and start writing children’s books. “My son getting cancer was kind of the impetus,” he shares. All proceeds from The Mystery of Trash Island and Martin’s other books go to Teddy Bear Cancer Foundation.

Martin regularly holds story times for Teddy Bear Cancer children, during which he reads his books. I attended one of his story times, where he read The Mystery of Trash Island. He always ends these story times with the same inspirational quote: “Let your imagination run wild, reach for the stars, and make your dreams come true.”

For more information, see petergmartin.com.