Kids Can Press
Franklin in the Dark
A Letter from Paulette Bourgeois
A Letter from Brenda Clark
Franklin in the Dark
The Story of Franklin the Turtle
Franklin Says I Love You
Franklin and the Thunderstorm
Copyright page
To Natalie and Gordon — P.B.
For Bob and Robin, with love — B.C.
Franklin in the Dark 
Written by Paulette Bourgeois
Illustrated by Brenda Clark
Kids Can Press
The first page of Paulette’s original manuscript for Franklin in the Dark
Dear Reader,
If you had told me twenty-five years ago that a little turtle named Franklin would become a family favorite all over the world, I wouldn’t have believed you. Nothing that has happened to Franklin the Turtle was planned way back then.
I was a journalist when I had my first baby and I thought, naively, that since I was a writer with a child, I should start writing children’s books. After hearing the television character Hawkeye on M*A*S*H say he was so claustrophobic that if he were a turtle, he’d be afraid of his own shell, I had my idea for my story. I wrote Franklin in the Dark and was thrilled when Kids Can Press decided to publish it. I was even more delighted when they asked Brenda Clark to illustrate. I thought it was a one-time deal, but readers wanted more, and so the series began.
I like to think of Franklin as just like any kid, anywhere. He and his friends share many of the same joys and sorrows, successes and failures experienced by children around the world. Franklin has been glad, sad, mad—and sometimes even bad. Many of the stories draw on my own experiences as a child (no, I wasn’t afraid of the dark, but I was afraid of small spaces) and those of my two children, who grew up alongside Franklin (they both loved their blue blankets, too).