Saturday, March 25, 2017

Kickstarter for a friend

This is to kick start for "The Jr Ranger Adventure" Series of National Park Books. Fun for adults and kids to read.  Each book is fiction and has an amazing story blended with  American Folklore.
As the population of America grows exponentially, our challenge to preserve our National Parks is just as great. “The Jr Ranger Adventures” will educate and impress a more permanent love for our National Parks by enlisting our National Folk Heroes.       
Our first finished book, “Paul Bunyan & Me in Yosemite” is a story of ten-year-old twins Lucas and Lucy, the children of National Park Director Talitha Fern and her husband John Henry who begin a camping tour together of the National Parks. 
Lucas discovers an ability to communicate with the Giant Grizzly sequoia tree in the Mariposa Grove. He is shown the hidden location of Paul Bunyan who disappeared into the west over a hundred years ago, thus beginning an adventure like no other.  
Eventually Lucas and Lucy earn their Jr Ranger badges while helping their Mom (Talitha) recruit the largest human in the world as Yosemite’s newest Ranger. 
 The President of the United States visits to help convince Paul Bunyan into joining the team. A presidential visit described very much like the one that recently took place. Paul Bunyan is a changed man dedicated to preserving trees rather than chopping them down, he decides to turn his axe and bull into tools of preservation. 


Paul Bunyan & Me in Yosemite
Paul Bunyan & Me in Yosemite
You will also meet the mighty John Henry (Father of our Jr Rangers), Casey Jones, Ranger Pamahas (Pam) the great-granddaughter of an ingenious Native American basket weaver and of course the President of the United States.  
You will travel from the palm of Paul Bunyan’s hand in Yosemite, to a velvety soft red seat in the caboose of the Cannonball with Casey Jones, gliding towards book two in the Grand Canyon. An experience you will never forget. "John Henry & Me in the Grand Canyon" will release by May 2017.  
16 Books between 120-180 pages each, are outlined and planned between 2017-2020 including National Parks in Ireland, England, Germany, Russia, China.  All connected to the same story just adding different folk-heroes and countries.
We have an amazing artist preparing beautiful and unusual art of Folk-heroes living in our National Parks. 
Each book includes fun facts and puzzles in the end to assist the reader doing a book report or on a very long and possibly restless trip to one of our amazing National Parks. 

About Derek Ryan Jensen Author of Jr Ranger Adventures



Derek Ryan Jensen was born in Redwood City, California June 27, 1976 and grew up under foster care until leaving on a church mission in 1995.  Derek wrote short stories and poems before graduating from Moorpark High School in 1994. He met the legendary Ray Bradbury his Senior year in High School who motivated him to become a writer.
As a teenager until in his twenties, Derek went on many backpacking trips in the high sierras with the boy scouts and other church groups.  He has been across over four hundred miles of back country between Mt. Whitney, Sequoia National Park, Kings Canyon, Death Valley, Yosemite, the Grand Canyon, Yellowstone, Zions, Bryce, the Angeles National Forest, San Bernardino National Forest and others.
Battling depression caused by trauma and abuse during foster care, Derek returned to the Dominican Republic spending another five years after his two-year church mission.   He married the elementary school teacher Miledy Lopez, and worked as an English teacher while providing fundraising and purchasing assistance to local medical centers and hospitals for supply and equipment upgrades.  Dedicating most of his time to centers treating patients with broken down or below standard equipment.
During his years in the Dominican Republic, Derek wrote “The tiny Life of Lucas Fern” on an old-fashioned typewriter along with thousands of pages of other poems, short stories and other works.  He was appointed Branch President where he lived, for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints at the age of twenty-three during the worse crisis the country had seen in decades.  Soon after the devastation of Hurricane George, a category 4 hurricane, he managed the administration of food and rebuilding supplies donated by the church to the local members, helping rebuild the homes of members and non-members. 
During his foster years, Derek's last name was changed (not-illegally) four different times before the age of eighteen. Upon returning to live in the USA, Derek was forced to legally clear up the name misunderstanding with the IRS and Social Security Administration.  In 2006 as he legally changed his name to Jensen.
He declared bankruptcy in 2014 after his unsuccessful attempt to settle unauthorized accounts that had been connected to his social security number using his past foster names.
Derek and his family lived in his native state of California until 2015 when he moved to Utah looking to start his own business and finally pursue his dream of publishing his short stories and books.
He camps with his family for a week in Yosemite every year (a family tradition), and other National Parks as time permits.  He missed the visit of President Obama in Just of 2016 by two weeks, but has included part of the visit in his latest book.  He has climbed to the top of Half Dome four times.

The father of two boys and two girls, Derek finally published his first book, “The tiny Life of Lucas Fern” in English and Spanish, and has completed the first book in his National Park series, “Paul Bunyan & Me in Yosemite.”  Set to publish spring 2017, he is putting the finishing touches on, “John Henry & Me in the Grand Canyon.” due to release early summer 2017.