Thompson, Lisa Sirkis: - Lisa Sirkis Thompson is a graphic designer, a former decorative painter, a writer and a co-owner of a small children's product business called Oh Bessie. Lucy's Mask was her first published picture book, although, as the mother of four children herself, surely not the first story she had created to comfort and delight young kids. She and her illustrator husband John wrote Lucy's Mask in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic to speak to young kids in a reassuring way about very serious issues like social isolation and personal protection. Since then, they both collaborated on Lucy's Quiet Day, the second in the Lucy Book Series. Lucy's Quiet Day finds Lucy without planned activities, and bored. But her vivid imagination takes hold when she wanders into her backyard, and finds that Nature can be anything but quiet. Lucy's Quiet Day encourages kids not only to take an interest in the natural world around them, but to find satisfaction and reward in alone time. And that's important for so many kids today who experience a busy, sometimes crowded schedule of activity.