• Age: 9 to 12
• Grade: 4 to 7
• Reading age: 9 to 12

In the final months of World War II, ten-year-old Peggy shelters with her mother and baby brother in a London butcher's shop during an air raid. They survive, but their home and everything in it are lost, including Peggyís most treasured possession, a biscuit tin of letters from her father. Their lives change dramatically and Peggy makes friends with a boy named Spud who has a passion for scavenging bombsites, leading to more than one surprising discovery.

For Jacqueline Halsey, growing up in post war London meant walking to school past numerous bombsites and listening to her mother's stories about food rationing and air raids. Consequently, she always admired the courage of women and children coping with the tasks of everyday life in wartime situations. This courage inspired Peggy's Letters, Jacqueline's first book.

After High School she went to art college in Worthing, Sussex and then much later obtained a BA degree at Mount Saint Vincent University in Halifax, which she attended as a mature student.

Jacqueline loves traveling and has visited many countries, including South Africa where she lived in a sugar mill village for four years.
She currently works in the Alderney Gate library in Halifax. Her days are filled with books, rhymes, puppets and lots of children to share them with. Jacqueline lives with her husband Ray, her granddaughter Ashlee, two cats and a very old goldfish in a house by a lake in Nova Scotia - a very different place from Peggy's war torn neighborhood. She is part of the Writer's Federation of Nova Scotia's 'Writer's in the School Program.' Her visits to schools are booked through them.

Jacqueline has a web page on the Writer's Federation of Nova Scotia website: http://www.writers.ns.ca/Writers/jhalsey.html.
Peggy's Letters (Oct 2005) published by Orca Books.
Nominated for: Hackmatack 2007 Children's Choice award; Rocky Mountain 2007 Children's Choice award; Silver Birch (Express) 2007 Children's Choice award; Woozle's Battle of the Books 2007 list

The Gran Plan
Placed third in the 2003 Atlantic Writing Competition/ Joyce Barkhouse award for Children's Literature. (Un published manuscripts) Subsequently, it was published (Fall 2006) by Scholastic as part of their Literacy Place for the Early Years school reading program.

Jacqueline Halsey's profile page

• Nominated, Forest of Reading Silver Birch Fiction Award
• Short-listed, Hackmatack Children’s Choice Book Award
• Short-listed, Rocky Mountain Book Award (RMBA)
• Commended, Canadian Children's Book Centre (CCBC) Our Choice, starred selection