Many of you readers have been through the trials and tribulations of starting a business.

In “Home Before Dark,” author Kim Vogler has us follow her through the trials and tribulations of running her advertising company, called Creative Imagery. She was sort of limping along and then she wrote “… the door opened to a new and exciting prospect” in the Reno area.

Although this is indeed an autobiography, Kim tells stories of people and incidents that intersected her family’s life and her business. One person who became part of both family and business was Heiko, from Germany. He was part of a bunch of guys who helped move Kim into her office when it was growing. Later, he would cement his relationship with Kim’s sons and eventually would marry Kim to make a happy family unit.

Kim writes in “Home Before Dark” that while helping Heiko become Americanized, she had to intervene at times when he tried to use American slang. One time he told a client that “it would be a piece-of-cheese.” He meant piece-of-cake and everyone had a good laugh, including Heiko, when the correction was made known.

One way to understand what a company does so you can do their advertising is to participate in whatever the client wants to offer. Kim takes the reader on a trip with her family in a covered wagon train adventure, much like our fore-fathers took to get to their dream land so they could start a new life. She enjoyed the experience and got this account to advertise their trips. Another adventure was through a sailboat excursion company who was interested in having Kim do their advertising. She wrote, “If you haven’t explored the North Shore of Lake Tahoe, you’ve really missed something.” She got this account too.

Among her many stories, is the rescue of a small animal during a cold winter storm; adventures in football; a pet cat named Sake; Kim’s father’s final days, and a poem dedicated to her sister.

Kim has had an interesting life in this world of advertising and she’s not through yet. She is currently working on her next book about more of her adventures.

“Grandma’s Bedtime Stories” is the first book of a series written by Sandy S. Fisher.

This story about a “Boy’s Trip to Mars” is written in a way that children as young as four will understand and enjoy the adventure of this young boy. The stories are designed so that children can exercise their imagination and maybe dream up their own stories. Not only will you enjoy reading this story with your child, you will admire the illustrations that were contributed by Elias S. Hawks, at age 6.

Sandy is from New York. She told me she read to her children every night before they went to sleep and that continued when she was lucky enough to have grand-children.

One night, after the story had been read to Elias, he said something like ‘tell me a new story’. So Grandma made up this story about “A Boy’s Trip to Mars.” She retold this story several times but also made up more, like the sequel to this book about more Mars adventures. She told me she has several, more stories too, just waiting to be published.

This is a delightful book and I’m looking forward to reading what happens in the next one.

— Donna Lee Anderson teaches writing and is the author of two novels and a reference book for writers. Email welltoldtales@aol.com.