Sisters author offers Northwest fantasy tale

Spinning tales comes naturally to Ann Kruger. She sees a story behind commonplace things.

"I'm driving along and constantly writing stories," she told The Nugget. "Maybe, for example, there's a rusty car out in the field. There's a whole story behind that."

Now one of those stories has seen print under her nom de plume, A.N. McDermott.

"Between the Roots" is a fantasy tale for young adults that began to percolate in her imagination during a trip to Sisters long before she moved here last October.

"It's been in the making for a while," she said.

A career teacher, she read her work in progress to her fifth-grade students.

"With each group, they said 'When is the movie coming out?'" she said.

It's impossible to describe the fantasy story without revealing a key plot point. Suffice it to say that it involves a walled forest, a mysterious commune and a boy's awakening to something very unusual in this world.

And there's a twist. Kruger likes that kind of tale and has since she watched episodes of "The Twilight Zone" as a child.

The book is classified as a young adult novel with a reading level of 10-13 years; however, adults enjoy it, too.

"Between the Roots" is available at Paulina Springs Books.