Introduction by the Author

When my children were little I told them bedtime stories most every night. One evening I created a new story about a little girl and boy named Hatty and Barty. Both of my children loved these new fictional characters so much that from that night forward they would only let me tell stories about them.

I told these Hatty and Barty stories for several years. It was quite a stretch to my creativity to keep coming up with new ideas and story subject matter but somehow I always managed to do so and I always enjoyed telling them.

Sometimes when I was tired, I would get to the crucial point in the story and then tell my children "to be continued". Their response would be "No Dad! Finish the story!" Usually I wouldn't relent and then the next night sometimes I would forget the story I had started the night before and this would create greater consternation.

You the reader, have one benefit that my children did not always have; and that is all of the bedtime stories in these Hatty and Barty books, created many years ago, have an ending even though some still include the infamous "to be continued" phrase in them.

I hope that you and your children will enjoy these stories as much as my children did listening to them when they were growing up.

Grant Boyer