Welcome! I’m Avis Kalfsbeek, the writer and steward of the Pedro the Water Dog Saves the Planet series. I write humorous, environmental adventure, climate fiction books with spirited, quirky characters that I hope will find a place in your heart.
I started the first in the series, One More Year, in a far northern town similar to Sandglass, a place where bicycles, skis and legs on trails seem to outnumber motored transportation and where the ancient glaciers carved wildly steep jagged mountains and deep, gargantuan snow-melted lakes. It was here that I asked Pedro (“P”) in my mind, where should we go? Panting with bouncing front legs, he responded,
”Onward!” (woof!)
Like a puppy, the writing is simple. Where is that smell coming from? Sniff Sniff. Can I eat that? Yum yum. I’m tired. Snooze Snooze. Possibly because it starts for the screen. Maybe the simple clears way for these stories that are not so cleverly disguised public service announcements.
There’s a good amount of irreverence, sport, beer, love, earth-spirit and chuckles. When Greta Thunberg tells me the health of the planet is in a 911 state, the F-word comes out more than once. I ask Pedro to cover his ears for some profanity. Otherwise, the tales are solidly PG-13.
Links to your favorite online bookstore to buy the books are on this page to the right. You can also join the fun for just $3 per month by becoming a Patron on Patreon to get early chapters and to help spread the environmental messages to buy less stuff, eliminate plastic and use our two or four legs, or the bicycle, more than motors. Just click here or the Join the Fun button below to become a Patron.
If you would like to join Pedro “P” on his adventures to love, swim and save the planet, we welcome you with open arms, hearts and slobbery doggy licks!
Woof!
Yours in peaceful love of the planet,
Avis Kalfsbeek
P.S. Drop us a line any time. We'd love to hear from you. Contact Me Here.
One More YearClick here to download the free eBook from your favorite online bookstore
Set in an idyllic northwest lake town, a young woman, Tilly, sets out to tackle an Ironman for an environmental cause, in order to convince people to buy less stuff. She doesn’t know all three sports so she relies on a curmudgeon former cyclist, her irreverent tattooed, tequila-drinking best-friend, a water dog, a group of maverick mountain bike guys and an old pirate to overcome her obstacles and to save the town. (Paperback and Hardback available at Amazon.)
Plastic PlanktonClick here download the free eBook at favorite online bookstore
The dramatic Big Island is the backdrop as Tilly moves on to the Kona Ironman. Coincidentally, her estranged brother, Moore, and his quirky, stoner hip hop-loving best friend, Spit, set sail to the clean up machine at the Great Plastic Garbage Patch. Nemesis SodaCo has falsified the machine’s results and it takes a spunky insider, an old French sailor, the Sandglass bike-surfer guys and a large lovable Hawaiian to slow the tsunami of world plastic. (Paperback and hardback available at Amazon.)
Bike RockClick here to download the free eBook at your favorite online bookstore
Realizing the only way to end fossil fuels is to get rid of cars, best-friend athletes Tilly and Camas write a manifesto for their bicycle ride across the country, The Great Petal Pedal Ride. The elders of Burning Man are called upon, having just kicked cars out of the playa, and the mayor of Netherland bike mecca, Utrecht. Add an ominous monopoly of oil barons, an elegant, musical starlet riding for the cause on Route 66, a glacier wedding proposal, and the beloved cast of quirky, irreverent, humorous friends on the Great Ride to a bike-first car-out world. (Paperback and hardback available at Amazon.)
Copper CobraClick here to download the free eBook at your favorite online bookstore
Two hip-hop-loving best friends work a salmon season in Alaska and, with the help of a humorous, sexy social-media vlogger and a 106-year-old pot-smoking resort matron, uncover a back-room side deal and unscrupulous dealings of a sinister lobbyist to thwart the poisonous acid runoff of an evil mine to save the largest wild salmon run in the world.
(Paperback and hardback available at Amazon.)
PlaneteeringClick here to download the free eBook at your favorite online bookstore
On a global One More Year tour of the greenest countries to reduce overconsumption, Tilly and Camas discover orienteering. Between running through forests and over streams and mountains, an Icelandic sage suggests Tilly also visits the least environmental countries. Orienteering leads Camas to adventure racing. She competes on a team with three smelly men in the Parklands Enviro-Climate Challenge, a televised adventure race covering ten national parks in twenty-one days that tests her strength, relationships, and spirit. With the help of a spunky Bohemian activist, a rhyming green lobbyist, and an ancient Harvard professor, who are working to stop racial injustice with the passage of a Green Amendment, Camas reveals fossil fuel threats looming over each of the nation’s natural treasures.
(Paperback and hardback available at Amazon.)
Coming soon! Become a Patron for early chapters.
Quote
“And the response to people who say you can’t go back… Well, what happens if you get to the cliff and you take one step forward… or you make a 180 degree turn and then take one step forward? Which way are you going? Which way is progress?”
Doug Tompkins
“And the response to people who say you can’t go back… Well, what happens if you get to the cliff and you take one step forward… or you make a 180 degree turn and then take one step forward? Which way are you going? Which way is progress?”
Doug Tompkins
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Avis Kalfsbeek
