Jaci Dawn

My alter-ego has carrot red hair, freckles, and a wicked sense of humor. She isn’t shy. She doesn’t care about rules. And she likes monkeys (at least one monkey – Mr. Nilsson).

STOP. I don’t care who my alter-ego is, she hates monkeys. There isn’t anything remotely cute or sweet or funny about Mr. Nilsson, except that he’s a fictional monkey. Pippi can be my BFF, but Mr. Nilsson really has to stick to being a fictional monkey, and may never – EVER – come out of the book. I feel about monkeys how some people feel about spiders and snakes. No. Just. No.

Truly, if it were not for the stupid monkey, Pippi was my heroine in grade school. She had a horse. She could do anything she wanted. She was STRONG (which I have never -ever-ever been). She had braids that stuck straight out from her head. She was fearless. She beat up bullies, but not unkindly.

Pippi likes ordinary kids like Tommy and Anika (the latter of which is more like myself). She doesn’t like fake people, people with an agenda, and mean people.She has a horse with no name that eats oats on the front porch. (That may be the best thing about Pippi: she has a horse! We could ride all day long, or just groom the horse.)

Pippi is also an immortal, still a child the age of nine, and still running amuck in some town in Sweden, possibly with a young Astrid Lindgren. It is never cold in Pippi’s world, for, as she, herself, stated: “If the heart is warm and beats the way it should, there is no reason to be cold.”