A chance meeting at a Christmas craft fair has led to a couple of creative minds publishing a children鈥檚 book.

When Sareh Puetz booked her table for the Cumberland Winterfaire in 2019, she was planning on selling her art.

She did more than that.

She ended up with a professional partnership.

Campbell River elementary teacher Heather Challoner stopped by Puetz鈥檚 booth, in what became a career-enlightening move for both of them.

鈥淗eather had a bedtime story about dinosaurs that she made up and read to her kids all the time, and wanted to turn it into a book for her own kids and to share with the ones she taught, too,鈥� said Puetz. 鈥淪he saw my pieces and immediately fell in love. She asked me right there if I would be interested in illustrating a kid鈥檚 book with her.鈥�

The book, titled Wild Worlds: Mighty Mesozoic is currently available on many online outlets, including their own , as well as which has it listed on its Hot New Releases in Stories in Verse for Children

Challoner, who teaches at Pinecrest, said her son was the inspiration for the book.

鈥淚 originally wrote this as a song that I sang to him every evening when he was a baby, and it has changed over the years鈥� it鈥檚 actually funny, when I read the story to my son (now nine years old), he was like 鈥楳om, this isn鈥檛 anything like my song.鈥�

鈥淏ut this is kind of like a bucket list thing for me. I鈥檝e always wanted to write a book.鈥�

Puetz said this was her first opportunity to design a book, and it was an arduous process.

鈥淐OVID put a large wrench in art shows/markets as well as our progress, but we kept at it,鈥� she said. 鈥淚 learned that designing a book required a lot of changes and wasn鈥檛 really suitable for traditional mediums. I had to learn how to draw digitally, and recreate my own watercolour style in digital where it could be moved and manipulated more easily for the book designer. The process of creating a book from scratch was a huge learning curve for both myself and Heather, but the results have been just as rewarding. To hold the finished product in our hands feels amazing!鈥�

鈥淥ne of the important pieces to this book to me was to make sure it was educational as well as visually appealing,鈥� said Challoner. 鈥淚 wanted to make sure everything was accurate so I worked really hard with Sareh to make sure that the pictures matched the words and that we were being accurate in our depictions.鈥�

Challoner said that while plans are not yet in the works for a follow-up, the title leaves that opportunity available.

鈥淭he reason that I titled it 鈥榃ild Worlds鈥� first is that, hopefully, it will be a series and this is the first of the series. We have some ideas already but nothing concrete yet,鈥� said the author.

鈥淚t took nearly three years but we鈥檝e finished it, and though it was a huge amount of effort, we think we鈥檝e got the process down and are hoping to do more books in the future,鈥� added Puetz. 鈥淭he title 鈥淲ild Worlds鈥� leaves us an endless number of possible topics to cover.鈥�

Challoner is hopeful the book ends up in all the school district libraries.