DeNaze Wharton

Growing up in Michigan with an imagination as big as Texas, writing is a great outlet for me. Though Dingus Slopp is the name of this series, our household knows them better as "Stinky Stories" because every night when my grandson, Jacob, came to our house, he requested "a Stinky Story." We just didn't know he lived in a portapotty! When we realized he did, we had to put the stories on paper.

Having an undiagnosed case of attention deficit disorder, reading was tremendously hard for me, unless I was very interested in the content. I only wanted to read books written by Beverly Cleary. I loved reading about Henry and Ribsy and Beezus and Ramona. Decades later, I wear my hair like Ramona. I would not have become a reader or become a nurse if I hadn't found Ms. Cleary's books.

My grandson also struggles with attention deficit while reading. I decided I wanted to write books that were funny to try to keep his attention. I believe many, many kids would practice reading more if they had funny content to read. My mission is to write to make reading fun.