The Further Adventures of a Lucky Dog: Owney, U.S. Rail Mail Mascot - Hardcover

This railroad map of the six train stations is a historical document from the 1890's in Chicago. There were a great number of railroad companies serving Chicago through these stations. The postcards are so you can have fun sending them to friends. They are a combination of illustrations from the book, a card of the Dearborn Train Station and a card from the World's Fair in the 1890's.As you can see from his travels on the back inside cover of the book, Owney went by himself all over the United States in the 1890's. To cross the country as Owney did, he would have had to travel through Chicago. The fact that Owney did this on his own shows us the difference between his world and ours. It was not that he was "allowed" to travel on the rail mail cards, it was how his life evolved by happenstance. Very simply, he just did it.We have tried to take Owney's actual travels and expand on them to imagine who he might have met and what he might have done during this period.And, you'll never guess who he might have met at the Chiago World Columbian Exposition in 1893.--------------------------------------------------------- Dirk Wales, the author of the first A Lucky Dog book has written this book as well. Dirk feels like a friend of Owney and in that companionship he believes he has become, like Owney, A Lucky Dog.Dirk has written other books for young people, most recently Jack London's Dog. His next book, The Happiness Road Trip: The Search for Wellness is a self-help book and will be published in 2010.Catherine De Jong Artman and Townsend Artman are the illustators for Owney in this book. Usually they work as independent illustrators and artists, but have used their combined talents to create this work. We are all the better for it.

Dirk Wales grew up in Los Angles and attended Stanford University and UCLA where he studied playwriting and stage direction. By his own definition, he got "a world class education in drama, esthetics and creative thinking".During his career, Dirk has worked at a motion picture studio in Los Angeles as well as becoming the Studio Production Manager for KCOP Television, Channel 13 in Los Angeles. He then produced television commercials in New York and Chicago before opening his own film company, Rainbow Productions, in Chicago.He has served as the writer and director for this company for many years winning 121 International and National Film Festival Awards for animated films for children, documentarties, corporate image films as well as physician and patient educational films/videos.This creative output has included four books for young people, which have the luck and distinction of appealing to "children of all ages" or adults as they prefer to be called. The books are: A Lucky Dog, Owney; Penny House; Twice A Hero; -- Polish American Heroes of the American Revolutionary War; and Jack London's Dog, the story of the dog who was the inspiration for Buck in Jack London's book, Call of the Wild. His newest book, and his 5th cildren's book, The Further Adventures of A Lucky Dog: Owney, U.S. Rail Mail Mascot will be released in September 2009.Mr. Wales has three children. He lives in Chicago and Santa Fe, New Mexico where he is active as an artist.