“Like a cup of hot chocolate on a cold winter day.”

— Kirkus (August 2025)

Skunk and Badger have an easy roommate rhythm—Skunk cooks! Badger cleans!—when they take in two orphaned rat pups, Zeno and Zephyr. Badger is working on an Important Rock Work article for Rock Hound Weekly and needs focus, focus, focus to write it. But how much trouble could two tiny rats really be? Some scheduling, a few strategically placed naps, and all will be well!

But it’s winter, and nothing goes to plan. Hibernation threatens every routine. Articles refuse to write themselves. And rats in the rock room? It will take a North Twist village to raise these rats!

The Rock Paper Incisors Book Tour!

I am traveling this fall!

Click on EVENTS to see where you’ll find me.

Also? These bookstores will be helping to host events in schools: ••• Children’s Book World (Los Angeles, CA) ••• Second Star to the Right (Denver, CO) ••• Politics and Prose (Washington DC) ••• The Novel Neighbor (St. Louis, MO) ••• The Book Stall (Chicago, IL) ••• Boswell Books (Milwaukee, WI) ••• Books & Co (Oconomowoc, WI) ••• Booked! (Evanston, IL)

What does the book look like?

Good news!

Booklist? “…Timberlake’s character work shines as a variety of creatures pop in and out of the story and Skunk and Badger are pushed to their limit. Kids besting adults is always funny, and Zephyr and Zero do it better than most. Sweetness underscores all, as the community rallies around their care and Badger discovers he might love something more than rocks.” (8.1.25)

Do you own Badger’s Typewriter?

Alas, no! I own a similar typewriter (a 1937 Remington Rand Model 1). In North Twist, woodpeckers make the best typewriters so Badger’s typewriter is a Picidae Portable.

from the journey