This story is for the big-hearted Smalls who inspired and helped with it, Annabel English Loftin and Joel Bridger Loftin: Future Oboe (and Ukulele) Player of America and Home Run Hitter of the Future, respectively. Indeed, the poem “Hope” in Chapter 22, also titled “Hope,” is Annabel’s original work and appears with her permission. Further, the story exists in this form because Joel wanted it to feature a shelf stocker, a private eye, and a baseball player. I thank these two siblings for their many contributions, only a few of which I’ve listed here.
Acknowledgments
I owe an unpayable debt to several people for reading Joel-Brock the Brave and the Valorous Smalls and for refusing to throw up their hands and leave me to my own devices. Annabel and Joel I cite in my dedication. Others whom I note for their proofreading skills and substantive critiques include Michael Hutchins, Klaus Krause, Jack Slay, Randy Loney, my agent Howard Morhaim and his former assistant Beth Phelan, Brad Strickland, my wife Jeri Bishop, and our daughter Stephanie Bishop Loftin, mother of Annabel and Joel. Of course, I also wholeheartedly thank Jonathan Bridger Loftin, our grandchildren’s estimable dad. Further, for over a year, the illustrator of this story, Orion Zangara, worked to provide the evocative pen-and-ink drawings that ornament each of its chapters. Finally, I must give more than a mere nod to Patrick Swenson: publisher, editor, writer, book designer, and friend. Without him, this book as a physical and/or electronic artifact simply would not exist. Wholly deserved blessings on each of these kind and talented folks.
Michael Bishop
Pine Mountain, Georgia