About the author
Joe Brown was born in Chicago in 1935. After what he describes as "a safe and happy childhood" he attended Drake University before earning his law degrees at DePaul University and becoming a licensed and practicing attorney at age 21.
He practiced law in Chicago for 50 years from 1956 until something very special happened on February 21st, 2005. This "thing" that happened changed everything. There was no turning back.
In 1957 he had his first child, Bobbi, who, today is the world renown makeup expert and serial entrepreneur. Michael and Linda followed. When the kids were around 8, 6 and 3, in the mid 1960s, he had just finished reading an exciting French adventure story (Papillon) by Henri Charrie're
"That was really, really good," he thought, "How wonderful it would be to write something like that". The thought occupied so much of his time that it got to the point of becoming his goal. Writing that book seemed to him a very worthy target, something that he planned to do…but, life happens and time goes by.
One morning in the shower, He was playing around with rhymes and said aloud to himself ,"Marceau (it was a French novel) is my name and this is my tale" and the word "tale" happened to rhyme with "whale". The first lines became" Marceau is my name and this is my tale. I've traveled the seas on the back of a whale." BINGO!! It was an "EPIPHANY", a "REVELATION". He was immediately able to imagine the entire series.
Thus Joe's character of Marceau was born. He is a taxi cab driver who escapes from his less than exciting existence by using his incredible imagination. He takes part in amazing visual adventures with animals, birds and anything else that his fertile mind can imagine. He has the ability, the SuperPower, that enables him to speak to and interact with animals of all kinds. He would try out his latest rhymes for the kids most nights and soon they began participating in the creation of the tales themselves. Over time the family crafted six adventures and, with the kid's help, they were written down and used for a while. The stories were eventually put into a little white box that was stored in the attic. They all went on with thier lives while the stories were mostly forgotten for the next 35 years or so.
On February 21, 2005 he was in Telluride Colorado celebrating his 70th birthday. On the way to dinner his daughter, Bobbi, said that she had to stop in the bookstore. He said "Good, I like bookstores, I'll go in with you". They went inside…And…
There, on display, were copies of a book…small and thin but a real, honest to goodness, hardcover book. Bobbi had found stories they had put together in that little white box in the attic. As his birthday gift, she had those stories made into a first class, to be proud of, kind of book.
Think about it. On a bookshelf in a REAL bookstore was HIS book, "Marceau" by Joe Brown. He was an AUTHOR. Having always wanted to be an AUTHOR, seeing this blew him away. It was easily the best gift he had ever received in his entire life as it turned out to be instrumental in totally changing that life. It allowed him to not only enjoy but actually relish his "retirement".
He quit being a lawyer, a profession which he had never loved. He was 70 years old that day. It was time anyway. He became, and has been ever since, an Author of Children's Books, a title he pclaims to value and love with his entire heart. This seemed t be, to him, a perfect opportu, we keep moving on. I sure don't want to waste the next 20 or 30 years of my life. He claims that a writer writes every day and that is who he is and what he does. That is who he is now…a writer and It makes him very proud. He now gets to read his books and teach Imagination to classrooms full of children all around the world, from Ho Chi Minh City to Hyderabad, India, Manchester, England, and, repeatedly, to a school in Elm